Pluralism and the culture of education in Thailand: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

The term pluralism in the culture of education relates to the acknowledgment, incorporation, and celebration of various cultural, ethnic, social, and ideological perspectives within educational settings. This study employs a bibliometric analysis to map the trend of pluralism in the culture of education in Thailand in its 500 publications since from the year of publication between 2000 and 2024 Literature data in this article collected from Scopus, web of science, and Google Scholar. Publication output saw a major increase, growing from 15 articles in 2000–2005 to 257 in 2021–2024—a period that then had a greater number of citations, 12.3 per article in 2000–2005 to 26.9 for 2020–2024. There was also an increase in the mean journal impact factor (IF) from 2.7 to 4.6, which reflects the increased academic attention towards and exposure of pluralism research in Thai education. In terms of institutional output, Chulalongkorn University ranks highest at 45 publications and 1450 citations (32.4 citations/article) followed by Mahidol University (38 publications, 1090 citations, 28.7 citations/article). National wise, Thailand leads in sheer number, with 320 publications, while international publishing takes with the United States, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom scoring similar citation per article (15.3 to 19.8) Keyword analysis: “pluralism,” “education policy” In regression analysis, institutional collaboration (β = 0.78, p = 0.002) and journal IF (β = 0.45, p = 0.025) were also significant predictors of citation impact. Citations are also elevated by open access publication (β = 0.56, p = .012). The study found that pluralism studies on Thai education are very extensive, indicating an increasing opportunity for international cooperation for the development of pluralism education with the contributions from Thai universities or centers in recent years. This study provides practical implications for policy, curriculum design, and teacher training, promoting inclusive, equitable, and culturally responsive education in Thailand and beyond.