A Systematic Scoping Review of Community College Literature: 2000–2019

Although community colleges comprise about one-third of all higher education institutions and more than 50% of all public postsecondary education institutions—and serve important functions in the US higher education system—they are often regarded as marginal. This is an argument scholars have also made in relation to the prevalence of community college–focused scholarship, including in top-tier journals. The purpose of this systematic scoping review is to examine the prevalence of community college–related articles published between 2000 and 2019 across top-tier multidisciplinary education and higher education journals, as well as community college journals. We also identify topical themes (content areas) and subthemes (focal content areas) and methodological approaches used by scholars in that literature. Further, we analyze the citation prevalence of community college scholarship and the composition of community college scholars on journal editorial boards. We end with a discussion of the implications of policy, research, and practice of our investigation on the community college literature.