A Bibliometric Analysis of Digital Citizenship Education and Competences for Democratic Culture: Global Trends, Knowledge Structure, and Future Research Agenda

Background The increasing integration of digital technology into education has raised concerns about students’ ability to participate responsibly in a digital society, highlighting the importance of Digital Citizenship Education (DCE) in strengthening Competencies for a Democratic Culture (CDC). However, studies mapping the relationship between DCE and CDC are limited. This study fills a gap in previous bibliometric research by explicitly linking DCE to DCC and providing comprehensive mapping based on DCC indicators. This study provides a foundation for researchers and institutions to investigate future research and supports the development of instructional models for strengthening the CDC through DCE to realize quality education. Methods A bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer, Bibliometrix, Publish or Perish, Microsoft Excel 2021, and Datawrapper was conducted to map the research network, analyze co-occurrence and emerging themes, identify highly cited publications, and examine leading authors and countries based on data from the Scopus database. Results The tracking identified 217 documents from 2008 to 2026. The number of publications is expected to increase significantly from 2023 to 2025, suggesting growing research interest. In the learning field, the network is connected only to the terms ‘teaching’. The most frequently co-occurring terms were digital citizenship and rights, reflecting the field’s underlying knowledge structure. Emerging themes are dominated by attitude-related constructs such as attitude and digital empathy. However, pedagogical terms remain limited. Although “learning models” and “assessment models” did not reach the predefined co-occurrence thresholds, abstract-level verification identified one study referring to “learning models” and studies addressing assessment (n = 10), measurement (n = 6), scales (n = 24), and instruments (n = 13). No study was identified that explicitly integrates a learning or assessment model with the full set of CDC competences in the context of DCE. The research landscape is influenced by highly cited works, such as Jones and Mitchell, with the United States as the leading contributor to both publications and citations. Conclusion Research on DCE-CDC has grown significantly in recent years, with digital citizenship and rights forming the core body of knowledge. However, the research landscape remains dominated by attitude-oriented themes, while pedagogical dimensions, particularly learning models and assessments, still receive insufficient attention.