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Social and Educational Sciences

Social and Educational Sciences is a research topic within Education. Science Explorer counts 25k research works in it since 1950. 9.6% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers covers a wide range of topics related to research methodology in social sciences and education, including qualitative research, discourse analysis, special education, gender studies, and quantitative methods. It explores various aspects of planning, conducting, and reporting research, with a focus on learning, pedagogy, and social construction of knowledge.

  • Qualitative Research
  • Methodology
  • Education
  • Social Sciences
  • Learning
  • Discourse Analysis
  • Special Education
  • Gender Studies
  • Quantitative Methods
  • Pedagogy
Research works
25k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
2.4k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.6%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
-39%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
Sweden
32% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Social and Educational Sciences

Which countries lead Social and Educational Sciences research?

By volume, Sweden and Denmark publish the most (779 and 681 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Sweden 779 works
  2. 2 Denmark 681 works
  3. 3 United States 237 works
  4. 4 Norway 215 works
  5. 5 China 130 works
  6. 6 Finland 89 works
  7. 7 Ukraine 76 works
  8. 8 India 75 works
  9. 9 Poland 64 works
  10. 10 United Kingdom 55 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

Sweden: 32.4%Denmark: 28.4%United States: 9.9%Norway: 8.9%6 others listed: 20.3%32%largest
Sweden779 · 32.4%Denmark681 · 28.4%United States237 · 9.9%Norway215 · 8.9%6 others listed488 · 20.3%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Social and Educational Sciences research?

By volume in 2022-now, Aalborg University publishes the most Social and Educational Sciences research, followed by Aarhus University and Stockholm University.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Aalborg UniversityDenmark 161 works
  2. 2 Aarhus UniversityDenmark 151 works
  3. 3 Stockholm UniversitySweden 89 works
  4. 4 Uppsala UniversitySweden 83 works
  5. 5 Sino-Danish Centre for Education and ResearchChina 82 works
  6. 6 Lund UniversitySweden 75 works
  7. 7 Kyiv National University of Culture and ArtsUkraine 69 works
  8. 8 Roskilde UniversityDenmark 67 works
  9. 9 Linnaeus UniversitySweden 64 works
  10. 10 Linköping UniversitySweden 59 works

Who are the leading researchers in Social and Educational Sciences?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Social and Educational Sciences include Peter Christian Gøtzsche, Pierre Bourdıeu and Michel Foucault.

  1. 1 Peter Christian Gøtzsche Denmark 292k citations
  2. 2 Pierre Bourdıeu France 268k citations
  3. 3 Michel Foucault France 208k citations
  4. 4 Frede Blaabjerg Denmark 203k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Social and Educational Sciences?

The most cited paper in Social and Educational Sciences is "Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences" (Henri Guitton, Sidney Siegel, 1958), with 35,478 citations. Next come "InterViews learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing" (6,743) and "The Complexity of Intersectionality" (6,591).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences Henri Guitton, Sidney Siegel · Revue économique Jul 1958 35,478
2 InterViews learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing Steinar Kvale, Svend Brinkmann 2008 6,743
3 The Complexity of Intersectionality Leslie McCall · Signs Mar 2005 6,591
4 The Social Motivation of a Sound Change William Labov · WORD 1963 2,120
5 Comparing Telephone and Face-to-Face Qualitative Interviewing: a Research Note Judith E. Sturges, Kathleen J. Hanrahan · Qualitative Research Open access Apr 2004 1,599
All 99 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Social and Educational Sciences research done?

The largest centres of Social and Educational Sciences research in 2022-now are Aarhus (Denmark), Aalborg (Denmark), Copenhagen (Denmark) and Stockholm (Sweden). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Kalmar, Huddinge and Falun.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 AarhusDenmark 212 works
  2. 2 AalborgDenmark 164 works
  3. 3 CopenhagenDenmark 157 works
  4. 4 StockholmSweden 144 works
  5. 5 BeijingChina 119 works
  6. 6 GothenburgSweden 107 works
  7. 7 UppsalaSweden 88 works
  8. 8 OsloNorway 77 works
  9. 9 LundSweden 75 works
  10. 10 KyivUkraine 73 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. KalmarSE · 63.7 works224×
  2. HuddingeSE · 24.4 works212×
  3. FalunSE · 21.0 works205×
  4. RoskildeDK · 71.8 works160×
  5. KarlstadSE · 33.0 works158×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Social and Educational Sciences than the world average.

See Social and Educational Sciences on the map

Where is the best place to study Social and Educational Sciences?

Among universities, judged by research, Stockholm University, Karlstad University and Mälardalen University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%30%mean 19.85%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Mälardalen UniversityStockholm UniversityKarlstad UniversityLinköping University
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Stockholm UniversitySweden 78.827.1%106.1×90 +1.4%
2Karlstad UniversitySweden 67.924.2%218.3×33 +33.5%
3Mälardalen UniversitySweden 66.327.4%102.0×13 +59.6%
4Linköping UniversitySweden 65.412.2%85.3×58 +55.0%
5University of StavangerNorway 65.426.0%25.8×10 +77.3%
6Uppsala UniversitySweden 64.310.8%61.2×83 +50.2%
7University of GothenburgSweden 61.217.7%48.1×57 -12.7%
8Western Norway University of Applied SciencesNorway 61.022.1%97.0×16 +28.0%
9Dalarna UniversitySweden 60.118.4%289.9×21 +68.3%
10OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan UniversityNorway 58.512.6%46.1×12 +57.3%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Social and Educational Sciences, country by country

Is Social and Educational Sciences research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 39% lower than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2018.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Social and Educational Sciences as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.015% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%0.060%Social and Educational Sciences0.0083% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Social and Educational Sciences over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Social and Educational Sciences9.4% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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