Introduction
The fundamental problem that occurred at that time was the failure of educators to help the understanding of students and the younger generation to think independently, so that many students did not dare and did not become independent[
1]. The main and fundamental idea of the world of education written by Eka Priyatma in Kompas with the title "Merdeka Belajar" with a rhetorical problem that he answered himself challenged, "What exactly is our education problem?" This problem we cannot answer with a cool head, while the reply should be the center of all our responses in formulating policies to improve the quality of education[
2]. So far, changes in wisdom and learning provisions are more directed at tackling cases (symptoms) than educating the root of the problem[
3]. These cases include the weakening of the competence of graduates, low production power, and the quality of scientific work [
4,
5].
Education is a fundamental pillar of social and economic development, playing a crucial role in promoting social mobility and enhancing quality of life[
6]. Over time, education has been shaped not only by policies and institutions but also by various socioeconomic factors that influence access, quality, and outcomes for different groups in society[
7]. Socioeconomic factors, such as household income, parental employment status, and residential environments, have been shown to significantly affect individuals' opportunities and achievements within the education ecosystem[
8].
As global education systems undergo transformation, numerous studies have explored the extent to which these factors contribute to educational disparities and how education systems themselves evolve in response to socioeconomic dynamics[
9]. However, a systematic and comprehensive understanding of the influence of these factors within the context of educational transformation remains necessary[
10].
This study employs a bibliometric review to trace the development of research that examines the impact of socioeconomic factors on the education ecosystem[
11]. By conducting a quantitative analysis of academic literature, this research aims to identify key trends, influential authors, and the most frequently discussed topics related to education's evolution under socioeconomic conditions[
12]. In doing so, it provides critical insights into how education is being transformed by ever-changing socioeconomic contexts[
13].
According to Abang Edwin Syarif Agustin (2019), linear economic education is able to facilitate education for sustainable development and increase employability in a job[
14]. Previous research highlighted the education ecosystem, but there has been no discussion related to socioeconomic factors in the education ecosystem using quantitative approaches and bibliometric analysis[
15]. In fact, to get maximum results, a philosophical and systematic foundation is needed[
16].
The implementation of Merdeka Belajar can be realized by taking a role in the teaching campus program that has been carried out by stakeholders with a good impact[
17], as found by Widya Karmila Sari Achmad in 2022[
18]. The family, school, community, mosque, social media, work environment, and nature are able to improve the quality of good education in synergy between educational institutions; this recognition has been raised by Abdul Rokhim, 2022[
19].
According to Kusoy Anwarudin, 2022, pesantren and the community are getting closer, and good cooperation is established because of the implications for all pesantren stakeholders to always improve their human resources so that they appear to have the excellence of the oldest education in the country[
20]. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct research related to this. In this research, researchers use bibliometric analysis, which aims to determine the mapping of developments and research directions related to socioeconomic factors in the education ecosystem.
Method
The writing of this article uses a quantitative approach with a thorough bibliometric analysis, which contains document and network analysis. Information or data obtained using the Boolean search engine to comb through the Scopus database between 1990 and 2023. The search will be conducted on December 14, 2023[
21,
22], at 6:00 p.m. This research uses R/R-Studio software, VOSViewer, and Microsoft Excel to analyze documents, citations, and networks[
23]. The stages taken by researchers include: in the first stage, researchers review literature with related themes to ensure relevant research so that gaps occur in bibliometric topics[
24]. In addition, a literature review is also useful for determining appropriate keywords and is considered to represent the scope of research[
25].
In the second stage, this research uses Boolean operato generated from Scopus (TITLE-ABS-KEY ("education") AND TITLE-ABS-KEY ("ecosystem")) to produce 11,760 documents[
26]. Then, filtaration was carried out with Boolean operators obtained from Scopus, namely (LIMIT-TO (DOCTYPE, "ar")) AND (LIMIT-TO (EXACTKEYWORD, "ecosystem") OR (LIMIT-TO (EXACTKEYWORD, "education")) AND (LIMIT-TO (SRCTYPE, "j")) AND (LIMIT-TO (LANGUAGE, "english")), resulting in 772 documents.
The third stage, bibliometric analysis, is carried out using the Scopus analyzer and R/R-Studio to find out the number of documents per year by journal, author, affiliation, country, and subject or field. Furthermore, analysis of the document network level was carried out by reading visualizations through VOSViewer and Microsoft Excel data processing.
Results and Discussion
-
a.
Document Analysis
Table 1 shows the results of documents collected over 33 years, resulting in the discovery of 3,839 authors with 84 single authors, and 31.99% international writing collaborations, 39190 references with an average citation per document of 21.86.
The influence of socioeconomic factors in the education ecosystem is recorded in several publications from 1990 to 2023. This is shown in
Figure 2. It can be seen that since 2010, there has been an increase in article publication with an insignificant decrease, and then in 2016, it has increased significantly.
The authors who appear in
Figure 3 are Fisher, B., Larson, L.R., and Li, C., with the same number of article publications of 3 documents [
27,
28,
29].
The most published university is the University of Florida, with a number of publications of 12 documents, which is then continued by the CNRS Centre National de La Recherche Scientifique with the same number of 11 documents as the results of the University of California, Davis. This can be seen in
Figure 4 [
30,
31,
32,
33].
Figure 5 shows the most countries that publish articles on the topic of socioeconomic factors in the education ecosystem, namely the United States with 276 publications, followed by the United Kingdom with 99 publication documents, and accompanied by China with 71 documents.
This research produced three of the most published sources on Scopus, namely the National Science Foundation with the number of publications of 38 documents, which was then continued by the National Institute of Health with the number of documents 22, and the Horizon 2020 Framework Program with the number of documents 19. The results can be seen in
Figure 6 [
34,
35].
On the R/R-Studio device, researchers found 3 elements that had been examined in the Three Field Plot by examining 3 elements, namely the name of the journal publication, the list of author names, and the theme or topic used. The three elements are then connected by gray plot lines that are incorrectly related to each other[
36]. Based on the name of the journal publication, each journal shows the name of the author who contributed the most to its publication, especially on the theme of the education ecosystem[
37].
The size of the plot shows how much of the publication relates to the theme. In
Figure 7, there are 3 journals. The journal that publishes the most research on the theme of socioeconomic factors in the education ecosystem is the journal Sustainability (Switzerland)[
38], which is displayed in maroon so that it is connected to seven authors, but the most published author is Zhang H with a discussion of the topic of ecosystem services and sustainability, and II[
39]. C, by publishing in the same journal as well as in another journal, namely the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Research.[
40,
41].
In the third element, each research topic is connected to the name of the author who published the results of the research with that theme. From the results of this analysis, there are five keywords[
42]. Education is the top position. This shows that the keyword is related to the title that will be raised by the researcher.
Figure 8 describes authors from various countries with the most article publications in terms of MCP and SCP. Researchers found that there are 3 samples of countries with the most publications, the first being the USA with the number of MCP 44 documents and SCP 123 documents, followed by China with MCP 10 documents and SCP 52 documents, and the UK with the number of CP 23 documents and SCP 27 documents[
43]. From this much data, it can be explained that the publication is dominated by the European continent.
Researchers explain three data points on articles that have the most citations in
Table 2, the first largest article citation is Richardson Ge, 2002, Journal Clin Psychol with 1,266 citations; Hope D, 2003, the second Proc Natl Acad Sci USA with a total of 631 citations; and Israel Ba, 1994, Health Educbehav with 532 Sibanye citations.
-
b.
Network Analytics
The study used the VOSViewer tool to obtain an analysis of the co-occurrence network with a minimum cluster size of 15[
44].
Figure 9 describes three kinds of clusters with various colors, namely, the first cluster is red with 41 items, the second cluster is green with 31 items, and the third cluster is blue with 22 items.
In network analysis on co-occurance density, it can be explained that clusters with bright yellow colors include keywords that are still often used and are still current, while clusters with faded yellow to green colors include keywords that are minimally used[
45]. The keywords Education, Ecosystem, and Article, including keywords with light green clusters, were often used in 2018–2019[
46]. The keywords Ecosystem Service, Experiment, and Educational Status include those that are bright yellow, so they are still often used since 2020 until now. This data can be seen in
Figure 10.
Researchers analyzed the data in
Figure 11, the keywords that have the highest color density, with the data that is bright yellow in the example keywords: education, ecosystem, and article. As well as keywords that are rarely researched with blurred yellow data, for example: ecosystem services, urban areas, and adults.
Table 3 shows keywords in each cluster that have the main theme in the research field of the education ecosystem. The theme in the first cluster is education items; the second cluster has ecosystem items; and the third cluster has adult health items.
Conclusion
The findings of this study determine the development and direction of research on socioeconomic factors in the education ecosystem between 1990 and 2023. This analysis is carried out at five levels of indicators in a broad bibliometric, namely scientific production, author, country level, affiliation, source, or journal. This bibliometric study provides many advantages for analytical enthusiasts who want to know more and gain insight into the social factors of the economy in the education ecosystem. This research is able to open horizons for prospective researchers by using bibliometric analysis. In this study, it was found that the topic of socioeconomic factors in the education ecosystem was widely researched by the USA, China, and the UK, but there are still few who discuss this same topic with bibliometric analysis from Indonesia, so it is hoped that researchers for this research can be researched and redeveloped by further researchers from within Indonesia so that this topic is able to extend to research scholars. This research was limited to articles indexed in Google Scholar and Scopus. Future research should include databases and other tools to track the growth of subjects. It is hoped that authors in the future can study socioeconomic factors in the education ecosystem more deeply and thoroughly by applying bibliometric analysis studies so that it is easier to read and also include citations of other documents from Google Scholar, WoS, Scopus, etc.