This paper reports on a research project funded by the German Research Association (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft – DFG), conducted collaboratively by researchers at the LMU Munich and the University of Oxford. The aim of the research project is to map the publication landscape in education in England and Germany, by analysing and categorising papers published in six leading educational research journals in the two countries in the eight years 2002 - 2009. The journals are:

·         Zeitschrift für Pädagogik

·         Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft

·         Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation

·         Oxford Review of Education

·         British Educational Research Journal

·         British Journal of Educational Studies

The choice of journals was based on the ranking of journals in the Social Science Research Index (SSCI) impact list and the focus of the project on generic educational journals, which excludes journals that have a specialised focus on a particular area within the broad field of education (see Tooley & Darby, 1998).

The foci of the analysis are topics, methods and authors of research reported on in academic papers. The analysis contributes to our understanding of the kinds of research conducted in this area, of differences between research in the two countries, of changes in publication patterns over time, and of gaps in the research landscape. The project builds on previous work on the publication patterns and the general development of education as a discipline (see, for instance, Eigler & Macke, 1994 and Dees, 2008).

The paper will report on the preliminary findings of this project, particularly with regard to the following questions:

·         What do publication patterns tell us about the topics of research in education?

·         What are the predominant methods and methodologies used in educational research?

·         What is the distribution of publishing authors according to gender, number of authors, institutional affiliations?

·         What are the patterns in educational research regarding the connection between themes, methods and authors?

All four questions are investigated in a longitudinal (how have patterns changed over the eight years under investigation?) and a comparative (what are the differences between patterns found in the English and in the German journal?) perspective.

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