Internationalization Evolution of Vocational Education in China (1949-2023): the Knowledge Mapping of Research Overview and Hot Trends

The internationalization of vocational education (IoVE) plays a pivotal role in facilitating economic structural transformation and upgrading, while also serving as a critical foundation for the country’s foreign strategic initiatives. To systematically explore the research landscape of China’s IoVE, this study conducted a comprehensive scientometric analysis using CiteSpace 6.2.R4, examining 2334 references from the Web of Science (WoS) core collection, Scopus, CNKI, and CSSCI databases spanning the past seven decades. Key analytical techniques, including keyword co-occurrence, author collaboration, term clustering, and timeline-timezone visualization, were employed to uncover scholarly cooperation patterns, research hotspots, and developmental trends. The findings revealed several critical insights. First, despite limited collaboration among scholars and institutions, research topics in IoVE are diverse and multidimensional, with distinct thematic emphases between Chinese and Western scholars. Notably, while sustainable development emerged as a reinforced theme through vocational education’s transition and upgrading, poverty alleviation and rural revitalization remained underrepresented in IoVE discourse. Institutionally, vocational colleges dominated research output, followed by undergraduate universities and research institutes, though significant regional disparities and uneven financial support for IoVE initiatives were evident across China. Historically, China’s IoVE development progressed through five distinct stages: The emergence and tumultuous development period (1949-1979); the recovery and initial development period (1980-1994); the speed-up period (1995-2005); the connotative development period (2006-2013); and the current transition and upgrading period (2014-present). Accordingly, this study suggested that to enhance China’s internationalization of vocational education (IoVE), four key measures should be implemented: (1) transforming societal perceptions to recognize vocational education as equally important as general education, (2) strengthening multi-level cooperation among scholars, institutions and enterprises through resource sharing and joint programs, (3) optimizing regional resource allocation with targeted government policies to address development imbalances, and (4) establishing diversified funding mechanisms with increased government investment to ensure sustainable development.