At the end of the UN Decade Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) and with the start of the Global Action Programme (GAP), we see a renewed commitment to further global activities for mainstreaming education for sustainable development in all educational sectors. Within the debate of relevant educational sectors to contribute to a more just and sustainable development, primary education figures prominently: it is the first time that all children learn together, that they participate in an institutional education setting. Basic education processes take place and students begin to develop a systematic understanding and perception of their world and the phenomena that occur.  (Spiropoulou 2007, UNESCO 2005).

During the Decade, numerous “best practice” examples were planned and realized and at the same time a significant body of empirical research has been developed (Wals 2009). Now, at the end of the decade, it is time to summarize the outcomes of research so far and to develop strategies for well-structured approaches to implement ESD into all educational sectors. Consequently, over the last couple of years, a number of systematic reviews occurred, taking stock of what is happening in education for sustainable development (e.g. Wright & Pullen 2007, Heimlich 2007, Vaughter et al 2013). While this helped to gain a more systematic overview of research activities in different educational sectors, still little is known about on research on education for sustainable development in elementary school education settings.

Against this backdrop, this contribution is reporting on a systematic literature review that examines current research trends in education for sustainable development that are going on globally in primary education. It covers empirical or conceptual research that has been conducted in the last ten years (2005-2014), and will provide robust data to examine research paradigms, methodologies, research topics, methods, key journals and authors in this emerging area of research.

The objectives of our review are threefold:

1. To provide researchers, school and university teachers, politicians, and all other actors that are involved in education processes, with an overview of the current trends and outcomes in international research on education for sustainable development in elementary school education settings in general.

2. To systematically scan the relevant literature and to organize the research findings into categories that may be helpful for further research, teacher education (including the organization of university/higher education curricula), elementary education curricula, and education practice, e.g. lesson planning.

3. To define research questions for further research on ESD in elementary school education.

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