Trends in Women Studies, 2011-2020: A Computational Text Analysis

Abstract

The interdisciplinary field of Women's Studies is manifested in diverse forms within the educational and research landscape of Indian universities and institutions. By scrutinizing trends and patterns in research, particularly focused in PhD theses, a comprehensive understanding of this field's evolution can be gleaned. In India, the discipline of Women's Studies is in a constant state of transformation, continually adapting its dimensions. In this study, we present our findings derived from an examination of the core theses produced over the last decade (2011-2020), exploring various facets of Women's Studies across multiple departments. Leveraging the Shodhganga digital theses repository, we meticulously selected 1389 theses as the basis of our analysis. The analysis reveals that the southern region of Corresponding Author: Dr. Manorama Tripathi, Email: manoramatripathi2@yahoo.com India has exhibited the highest publication output of these theses. To gain deeper insights into the breadth of research topics addressed by scholars, we employed computational text analysis techniques, specifically employing two prominent methods: Structural Topic Modelling (STM) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). These methodologies enabled us to unravel the hierarchical arrangement of topics and the co-occurrence patterns within the documents. In conclusion, our study underscores the significance and utility of Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) repositories, particularly in the context of Women's Studies in India. These repositories not only facilitate comprehensive analysis but also provide a valuable resource for researchers and scholars aiming to comprehend the trajectory.