Mapping European Educational Research: Insights from topic modelling of ECER abstracts

Abstract

European educational research is heterogeneous. It contains diverse areas of inquiry, types of disciplinary knowledge, methodological approaches, and philosophical foundations. This raises questions about what European educational research is about and where its boundaries lie. On the occasion of the European Educational Research Association’s 30th anniversary, and by use of the data mining technique topic modelling, this paper presents the results of an analysis of the abstracts database of the European Conferences on Educational Research (ECER; 1998–2024). In doing this, this paper uses the ECER abstracts database as a window to reflect upon and discuss the state and futures of the European educational research field. This study identifies 100 distinct topics in European educational research, defined as clusters of words that tend to be used together within the ECER abstracts. In addition to this, the study analyses the trajectory of these topics’ prevalence over time. Based on these findings, we highlight four central thematical evolutions in order to instigate a debate about the scope, focus and future of the field. In a response to these four clusters, we identify three key issues for the research field: the effects of policy and funding programmes, the ongoing diversification, and the question of the centrality of education.