Research on popular education in transformation : a bibliographic analysis of doctoral theses in Sweden 1991-2014

• Swedish research on popular education [folkbildning] has since the 1980s emerged into a rather well established field of research. From being a single theme in a few dissertations, the field of research has now developed into an organized community of researchers including a national network and secretariat (Mimer), an annual national research conference, and an active association for researchers and popular educators with interest in research on popular education. The expansion we have witnessed this last decades is not only limited to aspects of infrastructure and the growing number of researchers inhabiting this field, but also in terms of disciplinary and academic affiliation among researchers themselves as well as researched scopes and objectives. This present paper illustrates these transformations through a bibliographic analysis of 162 doctoral theses, produced between the years 1991-2014 and all of them are reported in Mimer’s newsletter. The theses have been coded based on their disciplinary production, academic affiliation, researched topics, and context, including the authors’ gender. The paper highlights in particular three issues/challenges to the field of popular education research: The effects of the emerging economy of publications and citations; the transformations surrounding the disciplinary nature of knowledge production; Gender and the representation of power. 

Nyckelord

Popular education research

bibliographic analysis

Sweden

Mimer

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)