A Bibliometric Sketch of Research Paradigm Shifts and Divides: The Case of Race and Education Scholarship

Grounded in ontology and axiology, this research develops a taxonomy to analyze research paradigms. The taxonomy is then applied to the field of race and K–12 education in the United States. Using a large language model (Gemini 2.0) for automated classification, 15,585 research abstracts published between 1970 and 2024 are classified to trace paradigm shifts across the past five decades according to their ontological and axiological stances. The findings reveal a marked transition from the dominance of non-value-committed realist paradigms to the growing prevalence of value-committed constructivist approaches in this field. Complementing this analysis, citation and co-citation network mapping shows that paradigm divides strongly correspond to researchers’ ontological and axiological orientations, which often underlie the differences in research methods. The article concludes by underscoring the importance of epistemological pluralism and epistemic reflexivity as strategies to bridge paradigm divides and foster more inclusive knowledge production.