Latin American geography education research trends in open access journals from the twenty-first century

Abstract

Recent projects, declarations, and articles around the globe addressed the status and development of geography education, where the discipline is standing, and what should be done to enhance the quality and quantity of research. Nevertheless, the paucity of research and limited approaches in Latin America about the type of studies published has made difficult the promotion and development of research lines, or even more an international comparative perspective. Therefore, the aim of the study is to show the spatiotemporal trends and existing research lines in geography education, extracted from 1880 articles published in 140 open access journals within the region from 2000 to 2019. The findings showed a consistent growth of research especially after 2010, just a few journals gathering most publications, and the intraregional disparity among countries on the evolution of the number and type of studies. Although Latin American researchers increased the number of publications in all research lines, the scientific production has been more prolific in five topics: theories, philosophy and debates, teacher education, teaching methodologies, instructional materials and resources, and student’s learning. In contrast, studies on assessment, technologies, fieldwork, research practices, history and educational policies have received less attention from scholars.