Education for Sustainable Development Through the Arts as a Driver of Educational Innovation: A Scoping Review in the Context of the SDGs

Abstract

This article addresses the need to rethink educational innovation as a transformative driver for sustainability within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG4. Its aim is to analyze the role of arts education as a catalyst for this innovation, with creativity as its primary strategy. To this end, a Scoping Review methodology following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol. A review of Open Access (OA) publications indexed in Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus between 2000 and 2025 is conducted. The results of this analysis show that most studies (n = 19) are developed in higher education contexts, with a strong emphasis on publications labeled as innovative and grounded in creativity, as well as a frequent association between innovation and the use of new technologies or digital tools. These publications also explicitly link their proposals to the SDGs, highlighting the central role of arts education in sustainability. However, there is a limited presence of studies at earlier or compulsory educational levels—such as early childhood, primary, or secondary education—as well as in museum contexts, which are closely connected to the arts. The article concludes that arts education holds significant transformative potential to foster engagement with sustainability in the pursuit of critical and creative generations for a more sustainable world.