The landscape of cultural-historical psychology in BRICS+ countries: a bibliometric analysis

Introduction

The cultural-historical approach occupies a prominent position among contemporary theoretical and methodological paradigms in the social and human sciences. Its foundational principles—regarding the sociohistorical nature of the mind, the mediated character of higher psychological functions, and the formative role of joint activity—have provided a robust framework for a wide range of current research and applied fields, including developmental education, neuropsychology, pedagogy, and transdisciplinary studies of human development (Dafermos, 2018; Engeness & Lund, 2020; Roth & Lee, 2007; Arievitch, 2017; Rubtsov, 2024). Amidst increasing interdisciplinarity, the rapid digital transformation of society, and heightened attention to issues of educational access and quality, the cultural-historical approach is gaining renewed significance (Daniels, 2008; Gromyko, 2023). It proves particularly relevant in the search for effective solutions in the domain of educational inclusion and in shaping an agentive subjectivity within rapidly changing sociocultural contexts (Stetsenko, 2023; Lubovsky, 2024)

Research grounded in the cultural-historical approach is actively conducted across Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Australia, reflecting processes of internationalisation and a sustained growth of interest in the cultural-historical tradition (Meshcheryakov, Ponomareva, & Shvedovskaya, 2022; Rubtsov et al., 2019). This growth is manifested in an increasing number of publications, the expansion of international scholarly networks, rising citation rates, and the emergence of new research centres. Nevertheless, the scientometric dynamics and geographical development of cultural-historical psychology remain insufficiently explored, particularly in relation to the contributions of the Global South, including the BRICS+ countries. These nations have demonstrated a consistent increase in scientific output, expanded investment in education and research, and the formulation of distinctive research priorities that complement—and at times challenge—Western academic models (Carla, 2013; Pouris & Ho, 2014; Sooryamoorthy, 2023; Selenica, 2025). Of particular interest are developments in the social and human sciences in the BRICS+ region, where growing attention is being paid to issues of education, social justice, intercultural dialogue, and social inclusion—topics that have long been central to cultural-historical psychology (Edwards, 2017; Daniels, 2002, 2012; Smagorinsky, 2022). However, to date there has been a lack of comprehensive bibliometric studies capable of systematically describing the dynamics, geography, institutional landscape, and thematic foci of the publication domain in cultural-historical psychology, with an emphasis on the contribution of BRICS+ countries.

The present study aims to address this gap. Its uniqueness lies in the application of a bibliometric approach to the comprehensive description and visualisation of the publication landscape in cultural-historical psychology and activity theory within BRICS+ countries. This approach enables not only a quantitative assessment of scientific productivity but also the identification of key institutional centres, international collaborations, and thematic cores within the field..

In bibliometric research, particular attention must be given to the construction of the publication sample. Given limited access to commercial scientometric tools, the open bibliometric database OpenAlex is increasingly recognised as a promising alternative to Scopus and Web of Science (Alperin et al., 2024). However, the use of OpenAlex requires careful data verification (Alperin et al., 2024; Simand et al., 2024; Haupka, 2024), as metadata inconsistencies—particularly in author affiliations and bibliographic references—have been observed. For example, the integration of OpenAlex into the PLOS Open Science Indicators project has confirmed its potential for monitoring open science practices, while also revealing limitations in retrieving licence information and interdisciplinary publications. These characteristics necessitate prior data normalisation and enrichment. In the present study, additional procedures for data verification, cross-validation, and enrichment were implemented, allowing the advantages of OpenAlex to be leveraged while ensuring bibliometric data quality control.

The aim of the present study is to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the contribution of BRICS+ countries to the research landscape of cultural-historical psychology between 2005 and 2024. The analysis focuses on identifying the dynamics and geographical distribution of publication activity, the structure of international scientific collaboration, key thematic clusters and institutional centres in BRICS+ countries, as well as assessing the role of the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology in advancing and internationalising scholarly communication. This objective is pursued through bibliometric methods that examine publication productivity, citation patterns, network interactions, temporal trends, and thematic structures, drawing on data from both open-access and commercial scientometric databases.

Within the framework of this study, the following research questions were formulated:

RQ1: What are the key trends in the dynamics and geographical distribution of publication activity in the field of cultural-historical psychology from 2005 to 2024, including specific patterns of growth in BRICS+ countries?

RQ2: What is the structure of international scientific collaboration in cultural-historical psychology, which stable transnational partnerships have emerged over the past two decades, and how is scientific influence distributed based on citation indicators?

RQ3: What substantive directions, theoretical concepts, and research foci shape the thematic structure of the publication landscape in cultural-historical psychology, and how has their representation evolved over the past twenty years?

RQ4: What is the role of the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology in the development and internationalisation of scholarly communication in the field, and to what extent does it contribute to shaping the international research agenda?

Materials and methods

Data sources

The bibliometric analysis was based on data retrieved from the following citation databases: OpenAlex, Scopus Preview, the Scopus API for non-commercial use, the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI), and the PsyJournals.ru portal. These sources provided a representative coverage of publications in the field of cultural-historical psychology for the period from 2005 to 2024. The integration of data from multiple sources enhanced the completeness and reliability of the analysis. The temporal scope of the study spanned 20 years—from 2005 to 2024.

Search strategy and sampling

The search strategy builds upon the findings and methodological approaches developed in our previous bibliometric studies on cultural-historical psychology (Shvedovskaya, 2016; Rubtsov et al., 2019; Meshcheryakov et al., 2022). The sample for the present study was constructed using the set of keywords employed in those works, which have demonstrated their relevance for identifying publications aligned with the cultural-historical approach. In particular, the keyword list in the study by Rubtsov and colleagues (2019) was developed through expert assessment by 50 leading Russian scholars in the field of cultural-historical psychology, thereby ensuring the content validity of the search strategy.

In the present study, the keyword set included the following terms: “cultural-historical psychology,” “cultural-historical approach,” “cultural-historical activity theory,” “sociocultural activity theory,” “Vygotsky,” as well as various combinations of these terms. When constructing the search queries, synonymous and orthographic variations (e.g., “Vygotsky” and “Vigotsky”) were taken into account. Searches were conducted in the Scopus, OpenAlex, RSCI, and PsyJournals.ru databases using the titles, abstracts, and keywords of publications. The search was performed on metadata available in English, although the language of the publications themselves could be any.

The use of this search strategy ensured the comparability of results with previous studies (Rubtsov et al., 2019; Meshcheryakov et al., 2022) and expanded both the temporal and geographical scope by including publications over a longer period (2005—2024) and incorporating additional data sources.

The selection of publications for subsequent analysis was carried out using the PRISMA algorithm (see Figure 1). As a result of the screening process, three bibliometric datasets were constructed (Shvedovskaya et al., 2025).

1. CHP — publications that include references to the cultural-historical approach and related concepts in the title, abstract, or keywords.
2. J-CHP — all publications from the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology over the entire period of its existence (2005—2024).
3. CJ-CHP — publications in which articles from the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology are cited as a source.

Search query for the CHP dataset

TITLE-ABS-KEY(("cultur*histor* psychol*" OR "cultur* histor* psychol*" OR Vygotsk* OR Vigotsk*) OR ("cultur*histor* activ* theor*" OR "cultur* histor* activ* theor*") OR ("soc*cultur* activit* theor*")) AND PUBYEAR AFT 2004 AND PUBYEAR BEF 2025

Source: Scopus, using the open API. A total of 6014 records were retrieved using the query (as of 19 February 2025).

Search query for the J-CHP dataset

An SQL query was executed on the internal database of the PsyJournals.ru portal, retrieving all articles published in the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology.

As a result, 1018 records were obtained for the period from 2005 to 2024, of which 947 records remained after excluding forewords, editorial notes, and brief communications (as of 15 April 2025).

Search query for the CJ-CHP dataset

PUBYEAR AFT 2004 AND PUBYEAR BEF 2025 AND (REF("10.17759/chp") OR REFSRCTITLE(({Kul'turno-istoricheskaya psikhologiya} OR {Cultural-Historical Psychology}) AND NOT {Cambridge Handbook of Cultural-Historical Psychology}))

Source: Scopus, using the open API. A total of 1909 records were collected, covering the period from 2005 to 2024 (retrieval date: 16 February 2025).

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

The analysis included publications that met the following criteria:
— Document type: research articles and review articles;
— Source type: journal publications;
— Language: any;
— Publication period: 2005—2024.

For the CJ-CHP dataset, an additional criterion was the presence of bibliographic references to articles published in the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology.

The following were excluded from the analysis:
— conference proceedings, editorial notes, letters, and interviews;
— duplicate and redundant records.

Data preprocessing

Following the retrieval of the initial datasets, a series of normalisation procedures was carried out:

— standardisation of country names;

— consolidation of author name variants (using OpenAlex IDs and algorithmic aggregation);

— removal of duplicate records across Scopus and OpenAlex;

— normalisation of publication year, document type, and language.

Data enrichment

CHP and CJ-CHP

Data enrichment for the CHP and CJ-CHP datasets was performed using the OpenAlex API. A Python-based query script was used to retrieve metadata from OpenAlex based on unique publication identifiers (DOI, PMID), or—if these were unavailable—by matching the title and year of publication (results were accepted only when a single match was returned). The enrichment covered the following categories: author and affiliation data (institution and country); abstracts; algorithmically generated keywords; subject areas (topic field in OpenAlex, Subject Areas [SUBJAREA] according to Scopus classification); and subject categories (topic subfield in OpenAlex, Subject Area Categories [SUBJMAIN] in Scopus). In cases where OpenAlex did not provide enrichment data, supplementary metadata were retrieved from Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR), using the Areas and Categories fields. Matching was conducted based on the Scopus Source Identifier and the SJR data for the year preceding publication. Integration of information from both sources was made possible through the shared All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) taxonomy. Minimum criteria for successful enrichment included: at least one author listed; affiliation data (organisation and country) for the first (or only) author; and the presence of an English-language abstract with a language identification probability of no less than 75% (determined using the Python-based language detection library fastText and its model lid.176.ftz; Joulin et al., 2016a; 2016b). If any of these minimum criteria were not met, manual enrichment (verification) was performed via direct retrieval of the publication.

J-CHP

The number of citations in Scopus was retrieved using the open API, based on the following query:

ISSN(2224-8935) OR ISSN(1816-5435) OR DOI(10.17759/chp*)

Source: Scopus, using the open API. A total of 359 records were retrieved, covering the period from 2018 to 2024 (retrieval date: 25 April 2025). Citation data from Scopus were used to enrich 330 of these records.

To further enrich citation data for publications in the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology, a search was conducted in the “Journals” catalogue of the Scientific Electronic Library eLibrary.ru by entering the journal title, publisher, or ISSN, followed by accessing the list of articles published in the journal.

As a result of year-based filtering for the period from 2005 to 2024, a total of 1083 records were retrieved. After applying a document-type filter to exclude brief communications and editorial articles, 942 records were selected (retrieval date: 14 May 2025).

​​The final consolidated dataset included the following fields: article title, abstract, keywords, list of authors, affiliations, country, year of publication, citation count, reference list, and number of cited references.

Analytical tools

Data analysis and visualisation were carried out using the following tools::

• PRISMA: for documenting the inclusion/exclusion process of publications;
• R (version 4.4.2) with the packages bibliometrix (version 4.2) (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017) and tidyverse (version 2.00) (Wickham et al., 2019): for initial data processing, descriptive statistics, and data visualisation;
• IBM SPSS Statistics (version 23): for inferential statistical analysis;
• VOSviewer (version 1.6.20): for visualising co-authorship and keyword networks;
• Python (version 3.13.2) with the packages BeautifulSoup (version 4.13.3), fastText (version 0.9.3), pandas (version 2.2.3), PyAlex (version 0.15.1), pybliometrics (version 4.1), pycountry (version 24.6.1), and a custom script (available upon request): for data collection, enrichment, and preprocessing.

The use of the OpenAlex database offers both advantages (openness, scale) and limitations: incomplete affiliation data, variability in journal indexing, and the absence of certain metadata (e.g., licences, DOIs). These limitations were partially mitigated through cross-verification with the Scopus and RSCI databases.

Accordingly, the final CHP dataset comprised 4332 publications covering the period from 2005 to 2024. Within this dataset, two subgroups were identified. If at least one author was affiliated with a BRICS+ country, the publication was assigned to Subset 1 (hereafter “BRICS+”), comprising 1391 records (32,1%). Publications without any authors affiliated with BRICS+ countries were assigned to Subset 2 (hereafter “GR,” referring to the Global Rest), comprising 2941 records (67,9%).

Results

Trends in publication activity in Cultural-Historical Psychology (2005—2024)

An analysis of publication activity over the twenty-year period revealed a steady increase in the number of publications related to cultural-historical psychology, both in BRICS+ countries and in the rest of the world (Global Rest, GR group).

An analysis of the overall publication growth in cultural-historical psychology across the two country groups—modelled using a regression approach (Fig. 2) — revealed nearly identical annual growth rates: an average increase of 6,99 publications per year in the BRICS+ group and 6,76 publications per year in the GR group. In both cases, the linear growth model provided a good fit to the observed data, with coefficients of determination of R² = 0,92 for BRICS+ and R² = 0,89 for GR.

Despite the persistent gap in the absolute number of publications, the growth rate in BRICS+ countries is comparable to—and, in certain time intervals, even exceeds—that of other countries. This becomes particularly evident when comparing publication activity normalised by the number of countries in each group: the average annual increase per country is higher in the BRICS+ group (0,699 publications per year per country) than in the GR group (0,338 publications per year per country).

The temporal analysis reveals a transition from isolated publications in the early period (2005—2009) to sustained and intensive annual publication activity over the past ten years. The most pronounced positive trends were observed in Brazil, Russia, and China.

In Brazil, the number of publications increased from 34 in 2005—2009 to 178 in 2020—2024, representing more than a fivefold growth compared to the initial period. In Russia, the increase was even more steady and consistent: the number of publications rose from 30 in 2005—2009 to 223 in 2020—2024, indicating more than a sevenfold growth over the study period. In China, a particularly sharp rise was observed in the most recent five-year interval, with the number of publications growing from 16 in 2015—2019 to 76 in 2020—2024—an almost fivefold increase.

For countries in the GR group, significant growth was observed primarily in the first half of the study period. In the United Kingdom, the number of publications increased from 66 in 2005—2009 to 102 in 2010—2014; however, subsequent years showed a decline-dropping to 77 publications in 2015—2019 and to 76 in 2020—2024. In Canada, the most notable decrease was recorded in the most recent five-year period, with the number of publications falling from 60 in 2015—2019 to 44 in 2020—2024.

A comparative summary analysis confirms that, since 2020, Russia has nearly reached parity with the United States in terms of annual publication output in the field of cultural-historical psychology. Between 2020 and 2024, Russian authors published 223 articles, compared to 215 articles from the United States. These findings indicate a convergence in publication volume within this research domain between Russia and leading Western countries.

It can be concluded that BRICS+ countries not only exhibit a stable increase in the number of publications on cultural-historical psychology, but also demonstrate growth rates that, when normalised, are comparable to-or even exceed — those observed in GR countries. This supports the notion that an independent and dynamically developing scholarly domain in cultural-historical psychology is emerging within the BRICS+ region.

A temporal analysis confirms the transition from isolated publications in the early years of the study period (2005—2009) to sustained annual activity over the past decade. This trend is particularly pronounced in BRICS+ countries such as Russia, Brazil, and China. To provide a more detailed illustration of the dynamics, the five most productive countries from each group — BRICS+ and GR — were selected. For each country, the total number of publications was calculated across four time intervals: 2005—2009, 2010—2014, 2015—2019, and 2020—2024 (Fig. 3). To model the dynamics of publication activity, third-degree polynomial approximation was applied, enabling the identification of both periods of growth and phases of deceleration..

The analysis of publication trends (Fig. 3) reveals that, despite an overall increase in publication activity across both country groups, the nature of this growth differs significantly. In BRICS+ countries, growth is predominantly progressive and, in some cases, rapid; however, the rate of increase varies between countries. Brazil experienced the sharpest early surge, with the number of publications rising from 34 in 2005—2009 to 127 in 2010—2014—an increase of more than three and a half times. In subsequent periods, the growth rate slowed: 149 publications were recorded in 2015—2019 and 178 in 2020—2024. In both cases, the increase compared to the previous period was relatively moderate (less than 20%). Thus, Brazil’s trajectory may be described as following a saturation model, characterised by rapid initial growth followed by stabilisation at an attained level.

In Russia, the growth in publication activity was more consistent and steady. The number of publications increased from 30 in 2005—2009 to 75 in 2010—2014 (a 2,5-fold increase), then rose to 151 in 2015—2019 (a further twofold increase), and reached 223 in 2020—2024 (a 1,5-fold increase). This pattern reflects a stable and incremental expansion of research activity, with no indication of saturation.

China presents a particularly noteworthy case, as publication activity remained low during the first two periods. Only 16 publications were recorded in 2015—2019, followed by a sharp increase to 76 publications in 2020—2024. This trend indicates a rapid surge of interest among Chinese researchers in the field of cultural-historical psychology in recent years.

The GR group demonstrates a different trajectory. In most countries within this group, the main increase in publication activity occurred at the beginning of the analysed period, followed by either a deceleration or a shift towards decline. In the United Kingdom, the number of publications rose from 66 in 2005—2009 to 102 in 2010—2014 (a 54,5% increase). However, a gradual decrease followed: 77 publications were recorded in 2015—2019 (a 24,5% drop compared to the previous period), and 76 in 2020—2024, showing virtually no change.

A similar trend was observed in Canada: following an increase to 60 publications in 2015—2019 (a 36,4% rise compared to the previous period), the number of publications declined to 44 in the subsequent interval (a 26,7% decrease).

Australia and Finland exhibited significant growth in the early part of the study period: in Australia, the number of publications increased from 30 to 62 (more than doubling), while in Finland, it rose from 10 to 42 (more than a threefold increase). However, in subsequent time intervals, growth rates also slowed, and in some cases stabilised.

Thus, it can be concluded that publication activity in the field of cultural-historical psychology continues to grow steadily in BRICS+ countries, whereas in several leading GR countries, growth rates are slowing or stabilising at their current levels. The polynomial approximation of publication trends illustrates divergent developmental trajectories for the two groups (Fig. 3): BRICS+ countries are characterised by upward curves indicating continued growth, while in some GR countries, the polynomial suggests a deceleration or even a potential future decline in interest. These trends highlight the importance of further examining publication strategies in BRICS+ countries as a dynamically developing scholarly domain in cultural-historical psychology.

Geographic distribution of publication activity

The distribution of publication activity by country revealed substantial differences between BRICS+ nations and the remaining countries in the GR group. An analysis was conducted of the most productive countries in terms of the number of publications on cultural-historical psychology between 2005 and 2024 (Fig. 4). Within the BRICS+ group, the highest number of publications during this period was recorded in the following countries: Brazil — 488 publications; Russia — 479; South Africa — 173; China — 110; and Iran — 88. These are followed by Indonesia, India, and the United Arab Emirates, although their figures are considerably lower. In Ethiopia and Egypt, publications on cultural-historical psychology are virtually absent, which may indicate both the limited presence of cultural-historical psychology as a scientific tradition and the low level of indexation of research outputs from these countries in the databases used.

Within the GR group, the highest number of publications was recorded in the following countries: the United States — 774 publications; the United Kingdom — 322; Australia — 278; Canada — 202; and Finland — 121. At the same time, the five-year trend in publication activity reveals a rapid increase in Russia, particularly over the past decade. Russia experienced a 101,3% increase in publications from 2010—2014 to 2015—2019, and a further 47,7% increase from 2015—2019 to 2020—2024. As a result, since 2020, Russia has nearly equalled the United States in terms of annual publication output in cultural-historical psychology. During the period 2020—2024, 223 publications were registered from authors affiliated with Russian institutions, compared to 215 articles from the United States.

To assess the scholarly impact of publications by authors from BRICS+ and GR country groups, an analysis was conducted of citation dynamics normalised by the number of years since publication, separately for each group (Fig. 5).

The results indicate that, overall, a higher number of citations is observed in GR countries. However, the citation trends differ between the two groups. In BRICS+ countries, the number of citations shows a steady upward trajectory, with an average annual increase of 0,033 citations according to linear regression analysis. In contrast, GR countries exhibit a downward trend, with the average number of citations per year declining by 0,042.

To assess the structure of international scientific collaboration in the field of cultural-historical psychology, a country-level co-authorship network was constructed based on the CHP dataset (n = 4332 publications). The analysis was performed using VOSviewer (version 1.6.20) with the VOS clustering algorithm. The network was generated using the fractional counting method, and a threshold was set requiring a minimum of five publications and at least one citation per publication (Fig. 6).

The analysis identified twelve clusters of international co-authorship, reflecting regional configurations of collaboration. BRICS+ countries were distributed across the following clusters:

• Cluster 1 (red — 9 countries): Brazil, together with Finland, Spain, France, Mexico, Portugal, Greece, Colombia, and Croatia (a cluster of Latin American and Southern European cooperation);
• Cluster 3 (blue — 7 countries): Russia, in collaboration with South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Israel, the Czech Republic, and Puerto Rico (a cluster of East Asian-Russian cooperation involving active participation from Asia-Pacific countries);
• Cluster 4 (yellow-green — 7 countries): China and India, together with the United States, Norway, Sweden, Hong Kong, and Thailand (a transregional collaboration cluster linking Asian and European countries);
• Cluster 7 (orange — 5 countries): South Africa and the United Arab Emirates, in cooperation with Turkey, Nigeria, and Ghana (a cluster representing expanding collaboration across Africa, the Middle East, and Turkey, indicative of Global South engagement);
• Cluster 8 (brown — 4 countries): Iran and Saudi Arabia, in collaboration with Malaysia and Bangladesh (a cluster of Middle Eastern and Asian cooperation).

The remaining clusters reflect a range of regional and thematic configurations. Cluster 2 represents the core of English-speaking international collaboration. Cluster 5 highlights strengthening regional cooperation in Asia. Cluster 6 consists of Northern and Eastern European countries and is characterised by a high density of intra-group collaboration. More localised regional networks are seen in Cluster 9, which reflects South American cooperation, and Cluster 10, which represents African regional collaboration with relatively low connection density. Additionally, Cluster 11 (Belgium and Austria) and Cluster 12 (Serbia and Slovenia) represent small, stable cooperative groupings within Europe, primarily based on bilateral or small-group partnerships.

No strong and consistent co-authorship links were identified among BRICS+ countries. Only isolated instances of international collaboration were observed: between Brazil and South Africa (n = 2), Russia and South Africa (n = 2), Russia and Brazil (n = 1), Russia and China (n = 1), and Brazil and China (n = 1).

Research Centre Productivity and Impact

An analysis of publication counts from 2005 to 2024 across the two country groups also enabled the identification of the most productive institutions. Productivity was measured as the total number of instances in which an organisation was listed for the corresponding author (reprint author). The top 20 most productive institutions from the BRICS+ and GR groups include universities, with a combined total of 2052 institutional affiliations (Fig. 7).

The highest publication output between 2005 and 2024 was demonstrated by two Russian universities: Lomonosov Moscow State University (115 publications) and Moscow State University of Psychology and Education (94 publications). They are followed by three institutions from GR countries—University of Helsinki (Finland, 81 publications), Monash University (Australia, 77 publications), and Pennsylvania State University (USA, 75 publications). Notably, two additional Russian institutions appear among the most productive: the National Research University Higher School of Economics (8th place, 48 publications) and the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education (20th place, 23 publications).

For a more detailed analysis of the most productive institutions from BRICS+ countries, additional indicators were calculated for the top 10 organisations with the highest number of publications. These included the total number of affiliated authors, the total number of citations, and the average number of citations per publication (Table 1).

Table 1

Ranking of the TOP-10 organisations in terms of the productivity of publications on the topic of the cultural-historical psychology of the BRICS+ country group over the period 2005—2024 (n = 492)

The results show that, in some institutions, the number of authors is lower than the number of publications—this is particularly characteristic of Russian universities such as the Higher School of Economics, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, and Lomonosov Moscow State University. In these institutions, there is an average of approximately 1,5 publications per author. A similar pattern is observed at the University of Campinas (Brazil). Of particular interest is the analysis of the average number of citations per publication. In this sample, the highest citation averages are demonstrated by institutions from South Africa—most notably the University of the Witwatersrand, where the average number of citations per article is 7,8. This figure exceeds that of most other research centres.

Thematic trends in Cultural-Historical Psychology

To identify the thematic structure of the included publications and its evolution over time, an analysis was conducted of the representation of the top five subject categories (topic subfield in OpenAlex; Subject Area Categories [SUBJMAIN] according to the Scopus classification) within publications from the ten countries with the highest publication counts over the past 20 years. The twenty-year period was divided into four equal five-year intervals. A streamgraph (Fig. 8) visualises the distribution of the main subject categories across different time periods and countries.

The results indicate that the proportions of the main subject categories within publications on cultural-historical psychology have remained relatively stable over time; however, several trends are noteworthy. The contribution of the Education category—comprising a total of 1416 publications—has remained consistent throughout the study period, fluctuating between 25,9% and 29,2%. The share of publications classified under Developmental and Educational Psychology (1159 publications) has gradually increased, rising from 29,3% in 2005—2009 to 34,8% in 2020—2024. A modest increase is also observed in the category Sociology and Political Sciences (480 publications), whose share grew from 10% in 2005—2009 to 12,4% in 2020—2024.

At the same time, a decline was observed in several thematic areas. The proportion of publications classified under Social Psychology (292 publications) decreased from 9,3% in 2005—2009 to 6,3% in 2020—2024. A similar downward trend was recorded in the category Human Factors and Ergonomics (755 publications), whose share fell from 22,4% in 2005—2009 to 15,3% in 2020—2024.

Thus, while the overall subject structure of the publication corpus remains relatively stable, moderate shifts can be observed—specifically, an increasing interest in developmental and educational psychology, accompanied by a declining share of work in social psychology and ergonomics.

The distribution of subject categories by country shows that the highest proportion of publications classified under Education was recorded in Australia (171 out of 400 publications, 42,8%; here and below, percentages refer to the total number of publications from each country), Brazil (255 publications, 42,6%), and South Africa (110 out of 259 publications, 42,5%). Substantial figures were also observed in the United States (395 publications, 35,9%), China (54 out of 145 publications, 37,2%), and the United Kingdom (167 out of 515 publications, 32%). The lowest representation in this category was found in Iran (18 out of 98 publications, 18,4%), Finland (38 out of 182 publications, 20,9%), and Russia (111 out of 482 publications, 23%).

The category Developmental and Educational Psychology is most prominently represented in Iran (56 out of 98 publications, 57,1%), Russia (250 out of 482 publications, 51,2%), and China (48 out of 145 publications, 33,1%). In most other countries, the proportion of publications in this category ranges between 20% and 30%. The lowest value was recorded in Brazil, where only 64 out of 598 publications (10,7%) were related to this thematic area.

The category Sociology and Political Sciences is most prominently represented in Brazil (142 out of 598 publications, 23,7%) and Finland (35 out of 182 publications, 19,2%). In other countries, the share of publications in this category ranges from 8% to 11%. The lowest proportions were recorded in China (27 out of 322 publications, 6,9%) and Iran (2 out of 98 publications, 2%).

The category Social Psychology accounts for the highest proportion in Brazil (88 out of 598 publications, 14,7%). In most other countries, this category represents between 5% and 10% of publications. Exceptions include Iran (2 out of 98 publications, 2%), Australia (8 out of 400 publications, 2%), and South Africa (5 out of 259 publications, 1,9%), where the share of publications in social psychology is minimal.

The category Human Factors and Ergonomics is most prominently represented in Finland (59 out of 182 publications, 32,4%), the United Kingdom (143 out of 515 publications, 27,8%), Canada (81 out of 322 publications, 25,2%), and Australia (87 out of 400 publications, 21,8%). In other countries, the share of publications in this category is considerably lower. The lowest proportions were recorded in Brazil (49 out of 598 publications, 8,2%) and Russia (27 out of 482 publications, 5,6%).

Publications in cultural-historical psychology span 23 major subject areas (topic field in OpenAlex; Subject Areas [SUBJAREA] according to the Scopus classification). Based on the frequency distribution of publications across these areas, a subject area word cloud was generated to visualise their representation within the cultural-historical psychology publication dataset (Fig. 9).

To compare the representation of different subject areas between the two country groups, the proportion of publications associated with each area was calculated separately for BRICS+ and GR countries (Table 2).

Table 2

TOP-10 Most Frequent Subject Areas of Publications on Cultural-Historical Psychology from BRICS+ and GR Countries (2005—2024)

Note: Areas to which more than 1% of publications are attributed are included.

Among the subject areas represented in cultural-historical psychology publications from BRICS+ and GR countries (2005—2024), the most prevalent is Social Sciences, which appears more frequently in the GR group (42% of publications) compared to the BRICS+ group (36,1%). In contrast, the field of Psychology is more prominently represented in BRICS+ publications (33%) than in those from GR countries (28,2%). Notably, the share of publications classified under Computer Science is significantly higher in BRICS+ countries (10,3%) than in the GR group (4,3%).

An additional point of interest is the analysis of citation impact across subject areas. For each area, two indicators were calculated: (1) the total number of citations and (2) the average number of citations per publication. For further in-depth analysis, the ten subject areas with the highest average citation rates were selected (Table 3).

Table 3

TOP-10 subject areas with the highest average citation rate for cultural-historical psychology publications from 2005—2024 (n = 4158)

Note: The ten areas with the highest average number of citations per publication are selected.

Among the ten subject areas with the highest average citation rates, the top-ranking categories were Business, Management and Accounting (25,2 citations per article), Decision Sciences (21,3 citations per article), and the relatively uncommon category Nursing, which showed an average of 18,2 citations per article based on a total of 11 publications. In contrast, the more prevalent subject areas such as Social Sciences and Psychology had lower average citation rates—15,3 and 15,8 citations per article, respectively.

It is important to note that, despite the thematic coherence of the publications included in the CHP dataset, different scientific fields exhibit distinct citation practices. For instance, publications in mathematics tend to accumulate citations at a slower rate compared to those in other disciplines. Even within a single field—particularly in the social sciences and humanities—the average citation rate may vary significantly depending on the methodological approach employed (Akoev et al., 2021). Therefore, citation metrics should be interpreted with caution when comparing across subject areas.

To further explore the semantic structure of publications on cultural-historical psychology (CHP dataset, 2005—2024) affiliated with BRICS+ countries, a keyword co-occurrence network was constructed. The analysis was conducted using VOSviewer (version 1.6.20), based on the titles and abstracts of the publications. A binary counting method was applied, capturing the number of documents in which a given term appeared at least once. Automatic processing yielded 25 007 terms, of which 400 met the threshold of appearing in at least 20 documents. A relevance score was calculated for each term, and 60% of the most relevant terms were retained for further analysis (Fig. 10). During visualisation, technical terms such as “article”, “review”, “respondent”, “level”, “indicator” , “result” and other non-substantive words were excluded. The final network consisted of 239 key terms.

As a result of the analysis of the keyword co-occurrence network based on the CHP publication sample affiliated with BRICS+ countries (2005—2024), three substantive clusters were identified. Cluster A1 (red, 124 terms) comprises terms related to the theoretical and methodological foundations of cultural-historical psychology. Cluster A2 (green, 73 terms) includes concepts pertaining to the domain of learning and education. Cluster A3 (blue, 42 terms) reflects research focused on communication and interaction.

To further analyse the semantic structure of publications affiliated with GR countries, a separate keyword co-occurrence network was constructed for the period 2005—2024 (n = 1391). The analysis was conducted using VOSviewer (version 1.6.20), based on the titles and abstracts of the publications. A binary counting method was applied, recording the number of documents in which a term appeared at least once. Automatic processing yielded 46 746 terms, of which 1263 met the threshold of appearing in at least 20 documents. A relevance score was calculated for each of these terms, and 60% of the most relevant terms were retained for further analysis. The final network comprised 405 key terms (Fig. 11).

Based on the analysis of the keyword network constructed from the CHP publication sample affiliated with GR countries, three substantive clusters were identified:

Cluster B1 (red, 162 terms): unites concepts related to Vygotsky’s ideas in contemporary psychology, including theoretical frameworks and their development within various academic schools;

Cluster B2 (green, 145 terms): focuses on research dedicated to the application of cultural-historical psychology in educational practice and professional development;

Cluster B3 (blue, 98 terms): covers topics associated with developmental psychology, the category of childhood, and the concept of the zone of proximal development.

In both samples, a prominent thematic cluster is devoted to educational practice and professional development (Cluster 2 in both networks), confirming the sustained interest of researchers in the applied potential of cultural-historical psychology within the educational domain. At the same time, the BRICS+ sample features an extensive cluster focused on the theoretical and methodological foundations of the cultural-historical approach (Cluster A1), whereas the GR sample places greater emphasis on the interpretation and development of Vygotsky’s ideas within the field of psychology (Cluster B1). In addition, the GR network reveals a more clearly delineated cluster centred on developmental issues, the zone of proximal development, and childhood (Cluster B3), reflecting the strong position of Western research schools in the area of developmental studies. In contrast, the third cluster in the BRICS+ network is focused on the theme of communication and interaction, which may indicate research priorities aimed at the study of dialogue and joint activity.

This difference in the semantic structure of key terms suggests that BRICS+ countries maintain a focus on the theoretical reflection and methodological development of cultural-historical psychology, whereas in GR countries, applied interests predominate—particularly relating to the adaptation and operationalisation of Vygotsky’s ideas in the contexts of education and psychological development.

In the analysis of keywords with respect to temporal dynamics, the metric Average Publication Year (Avg. pub. year) was used. To highlight the most significant keywords, technical and general cultural terms were excluded from the analysis. For each priority keyword, the number of publications in the CHP sample in which it appears over the entire analysed period is subsequently provided.

The priority thematic emphases by year in publications from BRICS+ countries are distributed as follows (Fig. 12):

• In 2015, the most frequently occurring keywords were: Bakhtin — 51 mentions, constitution — 41, Soviet psychology — 25.
• In 2016, predominant terms included: psychology — 344, history — 94, conception — 74, Vigotski — 68, Luria — 44.
• In 2017, keywords shifted towards theoretical concepts: L.S. Vygotsky — 165, mediation — 155, zone of proximal development — 116.
• In 2018, the focus shifted substantially towards educational themes: student — 323, teacher — 304, learning — 275, interaction — 205, teaching — 185, cultural historical psychology — 170.
• In 2019, the educational orientation continued to strengthen: learner — 154, challenge — 115, cultural historical activity theory — 112, impact — 97, skill — 97, classroom — 86.
• In 2020, terms more unique to the sample emerged: face — 27, perezhivanie — 25, Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory — 23.
• In 2021—2022, topics related to the pandemic and methodology came to the fore: pandemic — 30, covid — 28, qualitative study — 28.

Temporal analysis of keywords in publications from GR countries reveals a different pattern of thematic emphasis compared to BRICS+ publications (Fig. 13). The average publication year for the GR sample is 2012,5, notably earlier than that of the BRICS+ sample (2015,4), which may indicate an earlier onset of publication activity within the GR group.

The thematic priorities of publications by year in the GR sample are distributed as follows:

• In 2012, the most frequently occurring terms were: Bakhtin — 66 mentions, Cambridge — 31, private speech — 30.
• In 2013, priority terms included: Piaget — 97, consciousness — 86, psychologist — 67.
• In 2014, the focus shifted to concepts such as: activity theory — 155, mind — 151, thought — 117.
• In 2015, there was a significant increase in mentions of: Vygotsky — 1010, child — 548, language — 417, learner — 323, zone of proximal development — 296.
• In 2016, emphasis moved to topics such as: community — 285, case study — 238, program — 217, life — 196, ability — 195.
• In 2017, leading themes included: cultural historical activity theory — 554, participant — 334, contradiction — 216, CHAT — 211.
• In 2018, the most frequently mentioned concepts were: challenge — 274, higher education — 71, leader — 64.
• In 2019, focus areas included: Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory — 50, stakeholder — 43, labor — 33, engineering — 27.
• Between 2020 and 2022, themes related to educational practice and the pandemic emerged: perezhivanie — 54, pedagogical practice — 35, covid — 34, pandemic — 24.

A comparative analysis of the temporal dynamics of key thematic directions in publication samples affiliated with the BRICS+ and GR groups reveals both common trends and significant differences in thematic priorities and research development rates.

Publication activity on cultural-historical psychology began somewhat earlier in GR countries, as evidenced by an earlier average publication year (2012,5 compared to 2015,4 in BRICS+). In the GR sample, theoretical and methodological issues—including activity theory, Vygotsky’s ideas, and problems of consciousness and thought—were actively developed as early as the beginning of the 2010s. GR publications rapidly adapted cultural-historical psychology to the international research agenda, integrating it into fields such as education, leadership, and sociocultural studies. Furthermore, global challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, were reflected in GR countries earlier than in BRICS+.

In BRICS+ countries, the thematic dynamics reveal a later but more intense growth, with a gradual shift from theoretical and methodological foundations—including figures such as Bakhtin, Vygotsky, and Luria, as well as the concept of mediation—towards educational and applied issues. Since 2018, there has been a marked emphasis on key educational concepts: learning, teaching, interaction within educational settings, as well as the adoption of cultural-historical activity theory in pedagogical research. Research in BRICS+ countries predominantly focuses on educational practice and applied developments, while maintaining an ongoing interest in the theoretical origins and methodological foundations of the approach.

The observed differences in temporal dynamics and thematic emphases may be partly attributable to journal indexing practices in international scientometric databases (ISDB). In particular, a significant portion of journals from BRICS+ countries began to be actively indexed in Scopus and other international databases considerably later than leading journals from GR countries. The delayed inclusion of BRICS+ journals in ISDBs may have limited their international visibility in earlier periods and constrained the reflection of publication activity in bibliometric sources until the mid-2010s. This temporal shift towards more recent publications in BRICS+ countries is thus partially related not only to actual growth in scientific activity but also to expanded access to international databases, enabling more comprehensive recording of publications from these countries.

Sources of publications on Cultural-Historical Psychology

Research in the field of cultural-historical psychology (CHP dataset) has been published across 1409 different sources (journals). Considering the total number of articles (n = 4332), the average number of articles per journal is 3,1 (median = 1).

To analyse the sources most actively publishing work on cultural-historical psychology, the total productivity of each journal was calculated, and the twenty journals with the highest publication counts were identified. For these journals, the total and average (per published article) citation counts were also computed. These twenty journals account for 492 publications, representing 11% of the entire dataset (Table 4).

Table 4

TOP-20 most productive journals on the topic of cultural-historical psychology in 2005—2024

Note: The percentage ratio relative to the total number of articles included in the database is indicated in parentheses.

It is noteworthy that two of the three most productive journals are published in Russia—Cultural-Historical Psychology and Voprosy Psikhologii. Additionally, two other Russian journals are included in the top 20: Psychology in Russia (7th place) and Voprosy Filosofii (19th place). These data underscore a strong national core of publication activity in Russia and highlight the leading role of Russian journals in shaping and sustaining the scholarly field of cultural-historical psychology.

Publications in international journals receive significantly greater scholarly impact in terms of citations. The highest average citation rates were recorded in the journals Theory & Psychology (38,7), Educational Studies in Mathematics

(26,2), European Early Childhood Education Research Journal (24,6), Mind, Culture, and Activity (23,3), Teaching and Teacher Education (22,6), and Culture and Psychology (20,4). Russian journals exhibit lower average citation rates—generally below 2 citations per publication—with the exceptions of Cultural-Historical Psychology (3,7) and Psychology in Russia: State of the Art (3,8).

Contribution of the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology (2005—2024)

An analysis of publication sources highlights several journals that accumulate the highest number of publications on cultural-historical psychology. Among them, the internationally peer-reviewed journal Cultural-Historical Psychology holds a prominent position. In 2025, the journal will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Over this period, it has become a key platform for publications on cultural-historical psychology and related fields, playing a significant role in the development and internationalisation of scholarly communication in this domain.

Publication activity of the journal

To provide a more detailed account of the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology’s contribution to the development of the research field, a dedicated analysis was conducted of its publication activity, geographical distribution, and citation impact.

For this purpose, a specialised dataset, J-CHP, was compiled within the scope of this study, comprising 946 publications published in Cultural-Historical Psychology between 2005 and 2024 (Shvedovskaya et al., 2025). The analysis identified the number of countries with which the corresponding authors were affiliated. The dataset includes 49 countries, six of which belong to the BRICS+ group (Russia, Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Iran), while the remaining 43 countries fall within the GR group. For each country, total publication counts and overall citation numbers (based on Scopus and RSCI data) were calculated. Table 5 presents the ten countries with the highest number of publications in Cultural-Historical Psychology.

Table 5

TOP-10 countries by number of publications in the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology

Note: The number of publications is given in two versions for comparison with citation data from the Scopus database, which is only available from 2018. Average number — per publication.

Unsurprisingly, the largest number of publications in the sample is authored primarily by researchers affiliated with Russian institutions. In addition to Russia, significant contributions to the journal’s publication activity were made by authors from Australia (21 publications), the United Kingdom (19 publications), the United States (18 publications), Brazil (17 publications), Germany (12 publications), and Israel (10 publications).

The highest average citation counts per publication (according to RSCI and Scopus data) were recorded for authors from the United States (8,9/17,7 citations per article), Russia (2,7/12,9), Israel (2,3/17,6), and Australia (6,5/11,6). These figures indicate that publications by authors from these countries contribute not only quantitatively but also significantly to the journal’s scholarly impact.

The citation counts of articles published in the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology over the years, normalised for the time elapsed since publication, allow for the comparison of publications from different years while accounting for the varying “age” of each article (Fig. 14).

An analysis of citation counts for publications in the journal indicates an overall upward trend from 2005 to 2024 (based on RSCI data). According to the results of a linear regression model, the average annual increase is 1,02 citations. However, the applied linear model captures this dynamic with limited accuracy (R² = 0,39), suggesting a more complex pattern of change.

The results indicate that the number of citations declined somewhat between 2010 and 2013, whereas a sharp increase in citations was observed during 2018—2020. This growth coincides with the journal’s inclusion in the Scopus database, which likely contributed to the expansion of its visibility and international accessibility. In subsequent years, a decline in citation counts has been noted; however, further investigation is required to determine whether this is related to changes in publication volume, shifts in thematic focus, or temporal lags in citation accumulation.

Thematic trends in journal publications

To analyse the thematic structure of publications in the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology, a frequency count of author keywords was conducted. The sample included 903 articles published between 2005 and 2024. These publications contained 2959 unique keywords, reflecting the journal’s broad thematic range.

Unsurprisingly, the most frequently occurring keywords were cultural-historical psychology (147 publications, accounting for 16,3% of the sample) and L.S. Vygotsky (60 publications, 6,6% of the sample). All other keywords appeared in fewer than 5% of publications.

For further analysis, keywords with a frequency of at least 10 mentions (in more than 1% of publications) were selected. Based on this list, a word cloud of the most frequently occurring terms was generated (Fig. 15).

The keyword analysis reveals that, in addition to the most obvious and expected terms such as cultural-historical psychology and L.S. Vygotsky, frequently occurring keywords include zone of proximal development (49 mentions, 5,4% of publications), activity (45 mentions, 4,9%), activity theory (36 mentions, 3,9%), development (35 mentions, 3,8%), and reflection (33 mentions, 3,6%).

It should be emphasised that the predominance of terms related to activity and developmental approaches confirms the sustained interest in the key categories of cultural-historical theory and activity theory within the journal’s publications. Of particular note is the inclusion of the term perezhivanie (mentioned in 29 publications, 3,2%). The frequent use of this term may reflect a tradition of active theoretical and practical engagement with the concept within the journal.

The frequency analysis of keywords demonstrates a reliance on the classical conceptual framework of cultural-historical psychology, alongside the continued research interest in more contemporary developments within the Russian psychological school.

The thematic dynamics of publications in the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology over the twenty-year period allow tracing changes in research emphases and key concepts that have captured authors’ attention. To this end, keyword mention frequencies were calculated separately for four five-year intervals (2005—2009, 2010—2014, 2015—2019, and 2020—2024) (Table 6).

As in the previous section, the keywords “cultural-historical psychology” and “Vygotsky L.S.” were excluded from the analysis because they have consistently remained the most frequent ones in all time periods. Among the rest of the term collection, five of the most frequent keywords for each period were selected. In some cases, the number of selected words exceeds five due to the coincidence of frequencies.

Table 6

Frequency dynamics of key terms in the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology for the period 2005—2024

Note: excluded are “Vygotsky L.S.” and “cultural-historical psychology”, the most frequent words in each five-year period.

The results of the analysis indicate that in earlier periods (prior to 2015), the terms activity and activity theory consistently featured among the most frequently occurring keywords. In later intervals (from 2015 onwards), activity continued to retain its significance, whereas activity theory fell out of the top frequency ranks, possibly reflecting a shift in research focus from methodological considerations to more applied and specific investigations.

It is also noteworthy that in the first two time intervals (2005—2009, 2010—2014), the keyword culture ranked among the most popular, whereas its frequency significantly declined in later years.

Notably, in the most recent five-year period (2020—2024), four of the five most frequently occurring keywords are directly related to developmental issues: zone of proximal development, development, learning, and preschool psychology.

Additionally, it is worth noting that in recent years, more specific terms related to developmental and educational topics have increasingly appeared in the thematic spectrum, whereas earlier periods were dominated by more general theoretical concepts. This shift may indicate a gradual transition from methodological research to empirical and practice-oriented studies.

Analysis of the impact of publications from the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology

To assess the scholarly impact of the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology, the CJ-CHP dataset was compiled, including publications that cite articles from this journal as sources. The analysis covers the entire period from the journal’s inception in 2005 through to 2024.

The dataset includes publications affiliated with authors from 61 countries, reflecting the broad geographical reach of the journal’s scientific influence. For each country, the total number of citing publications was calculated, based on the affiliation country of the corresponding author. From these data, the twenty countries with the highest number of publications citing articles from Cultural-Historical Psychology were selected (Table 7).

Table 7

Number of citing articles of the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology by country (TOP-20 countries with the highest number of citing publications)

Citation counts. Unsurprisingly, the highest number of citations of publications from the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology was recorded in Russia: 497 out of 949 citing publications (52,3% of the total citing works identified). Citation counts from other countries are significantly lower. The highest numbers of citing publications outside Russia were observed in Australia (63 publications, 6,6%), the United States (40 publications, 4,4%), Norway (32 publications, 3,4%), Brazil (31 publications, 3,3%), and China (28 publications, 3,0%). In all other countries, the number of citing publications does not exceed 16 per country.

Quartiles of сiting journals. To assess the status of citing publications, an analysis of the quartiles of the journals in which they were published was conducted based on SJR data. Quartile information for the sources was available for 775 out of 949 publications, representing 81,7% of the sample. Of these 775 articles, 296 (38,2%) were published in first quartile (Q1) journals, 200 (25,8%) in second quartile (Q2), 235 (30,3%) in third quartile (Q3), and only 40 (5,8%) in fourth quartile (Q4) journals. Thus, approximately one third of all citing articles appeared in highly ranked journals. Results from a one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test confirmed a statistically significant deviation from a uniform distribution (z = 10,633, p < 0,001), supporting the conclusion that publications from Cultural-Historical Psychology are highly cited in prestigious scientific journals. This finding underscores the international significance of the journal and its integration into the global scientific community.

Co-authorship. The constructed country-level co-authorship network based on publications citing the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology (CJ-CHP dataset, n = 949) corroborates the geographical data presented in Table 7. The analysis was conducted using the fractional counting method with an inclusion threshold set at a minimum of five publications and at least one citation per publication. These criteria were met by 33 countries out of 256 represented in the overall sample (Fig. 16).

The results of the assessment of BRICS+ countries’ contribution to the development and international visibility of cultural-historical psychology are reflected in the structure of the co-authorship network among publications citing the journal (Fig. 16). Nine clusters were identified, among which BRICS+ countries are involved in the co-authorship networks of four clusters.

• Cluster 1B (red): Brazil (30 publications), in cooperation with France, Greece, Italy, Serbia, and Switzerland — a Latin-European cluster reflecting active connections of Brazilian researchers with Southern and Western Europe.
• Cluster 4B (yellow-green): South Africa (15 publications) and Iran (9 publications), in collaboration with Hong Kong — encompassing interregional ties of the Global South involving the Asian research space.
• Cluster 5B (purple): China (31 publications), cooperating with Japan, Malaysia, and the United States — representing Asian-American collaboration.
• Cluster 6B (turquoise): Russia (506 publications), closely linked with Belarus and the Czech Republic — an Eastern European cooperative cluster with Russia occupying a leading position.

Other clusters formed by countries in the GR group are not detailed in this section, as the primary objective of this stage of the study was to identify the positions of BRICS+ countries within the international co-authorship network of publications citing the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology and to assess their scientific collaboration ties.

The thematic diversity of works citing articles from the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology is characterised by a broad scope. The sample encompasses 118 distinct subject categories, underscoring the multidisciplinary nature of the journal’s influence.

The most frequently occurring thematic categories are as follows:

• Education — 416 publications, accounting for 43,8% of the total;
• Social Psychology — 313 publications (33,0%);
• Psychology, miscellaneous — 298 publications (31,4%);
• Developmental and Educational Psychology — 272 publications (28,7%);
• Cultural Studies — 150 publications (15,8%);
• Applied Psychology — 144 publications (15,2%).

The wide distribution of thematic categories indicates that research published in the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology is in demand across diverse scientific fields, encompassing both fundamental and applied domains. The proportion of publications by subject category is visualised as a thematic category word cloud (Fig. 17).

To delineate the semantic field of publications citing articles from the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology included in the CJ-CHP sample (n = 949), an analysis was conducted using VOSviewer on the titles and abstracts of citing works. A binary counting method was applied, recording the number of documents in which each term appeared at least once.

The automatic processing yielded 19 608 terms, of which 293 met the threshold of at least 20 mentions in documents. A relevance score was calculated for each term, and 60% of the most relevant terms—comprising 176 concepts—were retained for further analysis.

In preparing the visualisation, technical and generic scientific terms lacking substantive specificity for semantic analysis were excluded from the sample. These included questionnaire, abstract, year, value, literature, low level, etc., review, sample, survey, notion, respondent, event, comparative analysis, paper, topic, test, level, factor, characteristic, scale, empirical data, and effect. The final semantic network comprised 153 key terms (Fig. 18).

Semantic analysis of publications citing the CJ-CHP sample revealed three clusters of key terms reflecting the substantive dominants of scholarly works referencing articles from the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology (Fig. 18).

• Cluster 1G (red, 79 terms) — Key concepts of cultural-historical psychology. This cluster encompasses terms related to the development and interpretation of core concepts within cultural-historical psychology across various theoretical traditions, including works from different academic schools and generations of researchers.
• Cluster 2G (green, 71 terms) — Communication, personality, development. This cluster is dominated by terms associated with interpersonal interaction, age-related characteristics, and personality formation.
• Cluster 3G (blue, 3 terms) — Social situation, development. Despite the small number of terms, this cluster forms a distinct group related to the category of the social situation of development, emphasising its particular significance within the cultural-historical paradigm.

The resulting structure of the semantic network indicates that the influence of the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology extends across several interrelated yet relatively autonomous thematic directions.

Temporal analysis of keywords in the CJ-CHP sample (Fig. 19) was conducted using the metric Average Publication Year (Avg. pub. year), which reflects the dynamics of thematic directions in publications citing articles from the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology. Technical and general cultural terms were excluded from the analysis to highlight the most significant substantive concepts. For each keyword, the total number of publications in which it appears over the entire analysed period is also provided.

The analysis showed that citations of the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology increased following its inclusion in the international database Scopus (Fig. 19). The temporal indicators of priority topics in the sample of publications citing the journal are as follows:

• In 2019, the most frequent terms were: family — 52 mentions, category — 33, young child — 26.
• In 2020, emphasis shifted to terms such as: child — 276, concept — 220, perspective — 129, psychology — 122, knowledge — 100.
• In 2021, dominant terms included: approach — 230, education — 211, relationship — 206, learning — 176, teacher — 173.
• In 2022, prominent terms were: activity theory — 32, pandemic — 30, disability — 27, higher education — 26.

Thus, the dynamics of citing publications reveal a shift from general theoretical and categorical concepts towards applied educational issues and pressing social contexts of recent years.

Discussion

The results of the bibliometric analysis characterise the publication landscape of cultural-historical psychology as a dynamically developing, internationalised, and thematically diverse scientific field, in which BRICS+ countries demonstrate a progressive expansion of their scholarly presence and growing influence.

Contribution of BRICS+ сountries to publication growth (RQ1)

Key trends in the dynamics and geographical distribution of publication activity in cultural-historical psychology from 2005 to 2024 demonstrate that global publication output in this field maintains a positive trajectory. However, growth trajectories differ markedly between BRICS+ countries and others. In BRICS+ countries, a steady and, in some cases, accelerating increase in publication numbers has been observed. For example, Russia’s publication count has increased more than sevenfold, Brazil experienced over a 3,7-fold growth in the early period (2005—2014), and China’s publications nearly quintupled in recent years. These data confirm that publication activity in BRICS+ countries outpaces that of other countries on several indicators, where growth rates have stabilised or declined. Moreover, the increase in publication activity in BRICS+ countries is accompanied by the emergence of distinct thematic priorities. These findings align with international studies documenting a shift in the centre of scientific growth towards the Global South and an increased contribution of BRICS+ countries to global scientific advancement (Alperin et al., 2024; Selenica, 2025).

International scientific collaboration and scholarly impact (RQ2)

The structure of international scientific collaboration in cultural-historical psychology is characterised by dense networks in non-BRICS+ countries and limited cooperation within the BRICS+ bloc. Local research centres dominate within BRICS+ countries, with few stable inter-country collaborations observed among them. Isolated partnerships have been recorded between Russia, Brazil, China, and South Africa, aligning with findings from other studies (Pouris & Ho, 2014; Sooryamoorthy, 2023) that highlight the fragmented nature of scientific integration in the Global South.

Citation analysis, however, indicates that the international impact of publications from BRICS+ countries is increasing. In recent years, there has been growth in the average annual number of citations, and articles authored by researchers from Russia, China, Brazil, and South Africa have attracted the attention of international research groups.

Thematic directions and their transformation (RQ3)

Temporal and semantic analyses of publications in cultural-historical psychology over the period 2005—2024 reveal a stable substantive core related to activity theory, mediation, the zone of proximal development, and development (Cong-Lem, 2022; Veresov, 2024). In BRICS+ countries, there remains a pronounced interest in the theoretical and methodological foundations of cultural-historical psychology, with an emphasis on developmental and educational issues (Gromyko, 2023; Kholmogorova, 2016).

The thematic analysis of publications citing articles from the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology shows that applied and interdisciplinary research dominates in other countries, whereas BRICS+ countries maintain a focus on the foundational concepts of cultural-historical theory.
Thematic shifts in BRICS+ countries towards educational and social research have been actively recorded since the mid-2010s, likely related to the later inclusion of national journals in international scientometric databases (Alperin et al., 2024). BRICS+ countries demonstrate an intensive transition from theoretical and methodological research to applied and educational agendas, reflecting the integration of national schools into the global scientific community and the expanding applicability of cultural-historical psychology in contemporary social contexts.

Contribution of the journal Cultural-Historical Psychology to internationalisation (RQ4)

The journal Cultural-Historical Psychology continues to hold a leading position within the publication landscape of cultural-historical psychology, as evidenced by its inclusion in global research networks (Rubtsov et al., 2019; Meshcheryakov et al., 2022). Semantic analysis of citing publications indicates the journal’s multidisciplinary impact, with dominant themes related to education, social and developmental psychology, cultural studies, and social inclusion.

The journal’s growing international visibility is further confirmed by a citation geography spanning 61 countries, with 38,2% of citing publications appearing in first quartile (Q1, according to SJR) journals. Active citation clusters involve Brazil, China, Russia, and South Africa; however, transnational connections within the BRICS+ bloc remain sparse.

Conclusion

The results of the conducted bibliometric analysis confirm that cultural-historical psychology remains one of the most dynamically developing fields within the humanities. BRICS+ countries demonstrate not only growth in publication activity but also increasing integration into the global scientific agenda. At the same time, distinct thematic priorities are emerging, consistently associated with developmental and educational issues.

Nevertheless, international cooperation within the BRICS+ bloc remains fragmented and requires further development. The absence of stable transnational networks may hinder the formation of intercultural research schools and limit the global contribution of BRICS+ countries to the advancement of this scientific domain.

These findings underscore the growing importance of research conducted within the cultural-historical psychology paradigm, the relevance of which may be driven by:

• identifying and overcoming barriers and opportunities for expanding international collaboration among BRICS+ countries;
• analysing transformations in national science policies that incentivise publications in high-ranking international journals;
• investigating the integration of cultural-historical psychology into interdisciplinary research amid digitalisation, social inclusion, and global challenges.

Continued bibliometric monitoring with a focus on collaborative and thematic shifts will enable timely identification of key growth points and strategic priorities in cultural-historical psychology as a global scientific discipline.

Limitations. This study has several limitations that should be taken into account when interpreting the results.

1. Limited source selection. The analysis was based on data from Scopus, OpenAlex, the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI), and PsyJournals.ru. Although these databases encompass a substantial body of publications, they may exclude works published in local journals not indexed within these systems.
2. Uneven country coverage. Publications from BRICS+ countries may be underrepresented in international bibliometric databases compared to those from other regions, potentially affecting the observed trends and partly explaining the delayed growth in publication activity and citation rates.
3. Search strategy limitations. Despite employing relevant keywords, the terminological variability in the description of cultural-historical psychology, as well as overlaps with other theoretical frameworks, may have resulted in incomplete coverage of the literature, particularly in multidisciplinary fields.

These limitations outline promising directions for future research, including more in-depth qualitative content analysis, the expansion of the database to incorporate local and regional journals, and a more detailed examination of factors that facilitate or constrain the development of international scientific collaboration in the field of cultural-historical psychology.

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