Graduate employment in higher education: applying bibliometrics to world-system theory

ABSTRACT

As massification of higher education developed, employment challenges in changing labour markets aroused the attention of scholars globally. An interdisciplinary approach called world-system theory is applied by scholars from the social sciences, history, anthropology and cultural studies. This study applied the theory in a bibliometric analysis of graduate employment research using R and CiteSpace. It identified the main characteristics (e.g. authors and countries) of relevant research, investigated the social and economic context of certain milestone publications and visualised research hot spots. World-system theory, as a macrosociological approach to describing the world economy and social system, is innovatively applied in illustrating the findings of the current work. Results indicate that core countries not only are economically influential but also dominating the academic research. Scholars in semi-peripheral and peripheral countries are encouraged to establish transnational networks and foster academic collaborations.

KEYWORDS:

• Graduate
• employment
• employability
• bibliometric
• world-system

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meihua Zhu

Meihua Zhu is a lecturer in English at the School of Foreign Languages in Jimei University, China. She obtained a master degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) from the University of Birmingham in 2009. With more than ten years of teaching experiences at the university, she is currently a doctoral student of Education at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. Her research has emerged from this experience and involves interdisciplinary collaborative approaches, broadly concerning the role of higher education and language education.

Chao-Yu Guo

Chao-Yu Guo is Professor of Higher Education and serves as the Dean of the School of Education at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. He has engaged in educational administration practices and research for more than 20 years, and has worked creatively across the academic worlds of educational administration, curriculum design and assessment, quality assurance development of higher education while building up his wide knowledge of Taiwan and East Asia. In addition, he has contributed to the field of education evaluation and teacher development in a variety of ways.

Angela Yung-Chi Hou

Angela Yung-Chi Hou is Professor of Higher Education and Associate Dean of College of Education at National Chengchi University, Taiwan and serves as Executive Director of Higher Education Evaluation & Accreditation Council of Taiwan since 2016. Currently, she is also the elected INQAAHE board member. She has been involved in quality assurance practices and international research for more than 15 years. She has been actively taking part in quality assurance development of Asian higher education in the Position of APQN Vice President over past seven years.

Mei-Shiu Chiu

Dr. Mei-Shiu Chiu is currently a professor of education at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. She completed her doctoral study at the Faculty of Education, Cambridge University, U.K. In 2020, she served as a Fulbright scholar at University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, U.S., working for facilitating dialogues between educational and data sciences for STEM education. Her research interests focus on the design, implementation, and effectiveness evaluation of learning, teaching, and assessment in a variety of areas of knowledge (e.g. mathematics, science, and energy); interactions between emotions, cognition, and culture; and multiple research methods and data analysis methods (including educational and data science methods). She has developed several research-based educational theories, relevant assessment tools, as well as school and teacher development courses for educational and research practices.