Science Mapping Research on Social Studies Education: A Bibliometric Analysis of International Publications

In this study, international research papers by Turkish scholars on social studies education were investigated. The sample was selected among published journals of education indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) database, such as Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), and Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded). The obtained data were analyzed via the bibliometric analysis method using version 1.6.17 of VOSviewer software. The results revealed that the first publication in the relevant indexes was released in 2005, and after 2007 the number of publications showed an increasing trend. In addition, it was found that "Educational Sciences-Theory & Practice" and "Education and Science" were among the international journals that most frequently published papers on social studies education, while Kaya Yilmaz, Arife Figen Ersoy, and Handan Deveci were the most cited authors. Results also revealed that Anadolu University, Marmara University, and Gazi University were identified as the institutions that published most papers while they were also cited most. Finally, the most frequently used common keywords were determined as "social studies", "social studies education", "pre-service social studies teachers"; "academic achievement", "citizenship education" and "values education".