Tertium Comparationis: Issue 2/2025, 31. Volume Comparative explorations in the communicative areas of intercultural, international, comparative, migration- and sustainability-related educational research

The article employs a meta-research approach to analyse the scholarly communication of intercultural, international, comparative, migration- and sustainability-related educational research as thematic fields. A bibliometric analysis of citations is used to compare two issues: first, whether the different thematic fields correspond to different communication spaces; and secondly, whether these spaces differ in terms of cited authors in Germany or in the UK. The results demonstrate that authors from Germany are – compared to the UK – underrepresented in Scopus in the field of intercultural, international and comparative education. In the area of migration and sustainability related educational research, the proportions are more balanced. With regard to the thematic fields, the communication (citation) spaces of authors in Germany remain largely isolated. Only a small number of (most cited) authors are received across thematic boundaries. This also applies to German intercultural, comparative and migration-related educational research when compared to that conducted in the UK. In contrast, international education and in particular sustainability-related educational research show a significantly higher and internationally more connected communication space. The findings are designed to provoke critical reflection on and within disciplinary units. In particular, however, they demonstrate the usefulness of bibliometric methods and results for self-reflection and self-governance.

Keywords
intercultural education, comparative education, research on educational research, bibliometrics, citation analysis, comparative investigation