Scientific production on inclusive education and physical education: a bibliometric analysis

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop a bibliometric analysis of the scientific production on inclusive education and physical education, focusing on productivity, topics and collaboration. Articles and reviews related to inclusive education and physical education published until 2018 in ERIC, PsycINFO, Scopus, SPORTDiscus and Web of Science databases were included. Regarding results, 664 documents published from 1969 to 2018 were discovered. Documents approaching from sociology (183) and focused on inclusive cultures (63.1%) were the most represented. The average percentage of collaboration was 76.96%. Block was the most productive author while Lieberman achieved the highest number of collaborators. Almost half of the scientific output was published in 13 journals, three of them specifically dedicated to adapted physical activity. In summary, the scientific production on inclusive education and physical education has been mainly published during the last decade, in collaboration, focused on inclusive cultures and playing social sciences a key role for studying it, reflecting the interests and approaches of scholars and their patterns of collaboration. The emergence of inclusive education from the social and political spheres, the misunderstanding of this concept and its low educational consolidation have contributed to an increasing production of studies about inclusive culture.