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This is a Bibliometric Analysis study.

September 20, 2025Open Access

Mapping the Evolution of Social and Emotional Learning Research in Primary Education Contexts: A Bibliometric and Thematic Analysis

Key Points

Recent findings indicate a significant increase in social and emotional learning publications since the mid-2010s, focusing on primary education.
The analysis encompasses 915 peer-reviewed articles, with key contributions from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
Using performance metrics and thematic clustering, the study maps the conceptual structure and identifies geographic disparities in research engagement.
The thematic analysis shows a trend towards systemic interventions, emphasizing mental health and resilience in education, with fragmentation in intervention models.

Abstract

This study presents a comprehensive bibliometric and thematic analysis of social and emotional learning (SEL) research in primary education, aiming to map its evolution, key contributors, and conceptual structure. Drawing on 915 peer-reviewed articles published between 1983 and 2025, retrieved from Web of Science and Scopus, the analysis employed performance metrics, science mapping, and thematic clustering techniques. Findings reveal a marked acceleration in SEL publications since the mid-2010s, with the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia leading both in research output and collaborative networks. Science mapping identified concentrated author and institutional clusters, while also highlighting geographic disparities in global research participation. Thematic analysis uncovered a shift from early focuses on behavioral and emotional regulation toward systemic, school-based interventions emphasizing mental health, resilience, professional development and family engagement. Clustering results positioned ‘social-emotional learning’ as the densest yet fragmented basic theme, reflecting its structural centrality alongside persistent conceptual dispersion across intervention models, implementation processes, and target populations. This study’s findings offer a macro-level synthesis of the SEL research landscape in primary education with the related implications being discussed.

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