The meaning of life as an educational construct in scientific research from 1980 to 2024

The objective of this study is, first, to analyze the main trends in scientific publications on the meaning of life and, second, to identify the impact of this focus on educational research. Conceptually, it is understood that the subject has historically been addressed primarily by fields of knowledge such as philosophy, theology, and psychology. Therefore, this bibliometric research seeks to compare the overall volume of publications and how they are distributed in scientific journals based on two specific variables: the area of knowledge of the scientific journals and the specialization of their main authors, in order to additionally identify the approach that the topic has had from/in the educational field. The database used was SCOPUS through its advanced search tool, using the Topic field, which includes title, abstract, and keywords. The terms included in the search were the main meanings of the concept: meaning life, life meaning, meaning in life, and meaning of life. The search was restricted to scientific articles, excluding reviews, letters, books, book chapters, notes, conferences, editorials, short surveys, and reviews. The date range selected was between 1980 and 2024, as the literature identifies that it was from 1980 onwards that interest in the subject began to resurface. Data processing was carried out using the R language and the Biblioshiny application from the Bibliometrix library/package. A total of 5,575 articles met the criteria, of which 513 combined the concept of meaning of life with that of education. Based on this data, a detailed analysis was carried out, which provides evidence of general scientific interest and, in particular, for the field of education, specifically for the philosophy of education, the field from which the interest in researching the topic stems, with the aim of identifying impact, trends, the most prolific authors, and journals that have addressed the concept of meaning of life in educational terms.