A systematic review of Spanish academic production in the field of social work

Abstract

Summary This article is a systematic review of Spanish scientific production in the field of social work hosted in the Web of Science. Findings The article analyses the current state of social work research in Spain. Since the creation of the European Higher Education Area, Spanish social work has been obliged to meet university research requirements, including the publication of papers in journals indexed in the world’s leading databases. Spanish scientific production is analysed from its beginnings until 2020. The main findings were that most research published by Spanish social work academics was written in Spanish, while other categories of authors, such as Spanish non-social work academics, published more in English. Spanish-language journals were mostly indexed in ESCI, while those in English were in JCR or SCOPUS, consistently receiving few citations. Women as main authors exceeded men in percentages of indexed articles. Bibliometric quality measures using SCOPUS data were slightly better than those using JCR. The most developed topics in the area were general and transversal issues such as immigration, social services, social intervention, social policies, etc. Applications The study demonstrates to Spanish social work researchers that they have a greater likelihood of obtaining higher quality measures if they publish in English in JCR- and SCOPUS-indexed journals, thus offering them enhanced academic career visibility.