Pluralism in English Language Teaching (ELT): A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Pluralism has become an essential focus in contemporary education, particularly in English Language Education (ELT), due to the increasing diversity of students' backgrounds influenced by globalization. Numerous literature reviews have explored the role of pluralism in ELT. This study aims to examine the publication trends, identify the most cited countries, analyze the most cited sources related to, determine the most cited authors, investigate the commonly associated keywords, and propose future research avenues. Using bibliometric analysis, the authors analyzed 264 articles sourced from the Scopus Database on December 7, 2024.  The R.4.4.1 program or Biblioshiny tools were utilized to assess citation trends through the h-index and q-index, while the VOS viewer software was employed to visualize the relationship among keywords. The findings offer valuable insight into the evolving landscape of pluralism in ELT, highlighting influential research sources and areas for future investigation. These insights have the potential to inform future ELT practice guides and further research into inclusive, culturally responsive pedagogies. However, there are several limitations of this research, including a limited range of publications, manual elimination of irrelevant journals, lack of consistency in information, and inability to perform specific evaluations, like gender-based due to technological constraints in the software tools.