A bibliometric study of Swedish educational research: mapping key themes, 2000–2020

This article maps the landscape of Swedish educational research as it has been published over the period 2000–2020 in peer-reviewed English language journals. Topic modeling techniques were used to analyze the metadata of keywords, abstracts, and titles from 7,402 peer-reviewed articles in the Scopus database. This analysis identified 25 topics characteristic of Swedish educational research. Analysis of supplementary bibliographic information, including reference lists, authorship, and journal titles, reveals that qualitative studies on teaching and learning, particularly those using phenomenographic, pragmatic, and socio-cultural/activity theory approaches, have dominated Swedish educational research. The article concludes by examining the content of this body of knowledge along key axes of contestation. Research on skills and competences often employs a markedly different language than studies focusing on values and attitudes. Furthermore, research centered on learning and didactics as a microphenomenon contrasts with work that emphasizes educational organization and large-scale evaluation.