Content analysis of international research in geographical and environmental education: 18 years of academic publishing

摘要

This paper examines the history of the International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education (IRGEE) journal in terms of its sustainable future. The development of geographical and environmental education is evaluated, as reflected from the papers published in the journal " IRGEE". A content analysis of all papers and forum sections which have appeared in the journal since Volume 1 Number 1 was published in 1992 has been conducted, examining the content of as many as 526 papers. The method was a content analysis and revealed themes which have experienced an increasing or declining interest over the 18 years of publication of IRGEE (1992-2009), whilst other themes have remained current during this period. The main findings of this analysis are (a) the total number of papers has increased more than threefold, (b) papers related to geographical education (sensu stricto) outweighed those related to environmental education, (c) the themes "syllabi, textbooks, curricula" and "values, attitudes" attract the attention of researchers with increasing strength and (d) emerging subjects, such as geographic information systems (GIS) and sustainability, have appeared dynamically in the last years.