Making the elementary schooling system in India work for disadvantaged learners: a cross-scalar comparative study of accountability relations

全球发展政策关注公平的学习者参与和成就，但低学习成果和明显的学习不平等现象依然存在。供应市场化是教育领域的一种日益增长的趋势，它具有复杂的问责和监管关系。这项研究旨在通过偏离为改革隔离特定变量的既定方法，促进对改善弱势儿童学习结果的责任的理解。相反，它将问责制概念化为系统性和关联性。它旨在展示家庭、社区、学校和官僚机构范围内的多个行为者如何具有特定的规范和兴趣、参与模式和监管角色，从而塑造弱势儿童的学习结果。它既审查了这些系统行为者基于规则的正式关系，也审查了非正式的日常问责做法--所有这些都对实现政策目标的进展有重大影响，但迄今知之甚少。该项目侧重于印度“弱势学习者”的学习成果：即由于一系列结构性不平等而处于不利地位的小学适龄儿童，这些结构性不平等往往是贯穿各领域的，如性别、地点、种姓和阶级。它采用了印度《受教育权法案》(RTE)中的关键质量和公平条款，并审查了这些条款是如何以不同的方式实施的，以及关于家庭、社区、学校和官僚机构四个系统规模的行为者对教育质量和公平的不同理解。在恰蒂斯加尔邦和马哈拉施特拉邦这两个邦开展了实证工作，重点是两个区和每个区内的两个区块，这两个区块是特意选择的，以便能够进行区块内、区际和州际比较。在每个区块，我们抽样10所学校，其中包括政府、私立和大规模的替代方案，以检查围绕着不同位置的学习者的问责关系。研究设计遵循顺序混合方法，从定性调查开始，然后使用定量调查来验证和扩展定性分析。我们将使用一种创新的过程跟踪方法，以样本学校为基础，跟踪来自RTE指令的具体政策倡议是如何被系统范围内的多个参与者理解的。这使得这项研究能够确定他们的实际行动如何与学习目标汇聚和背离--正如RTE和这些行为者所理解的那样--以及对儿童学习结果的影响。我们的合作伙伴非政府组织CSEI将共同实施我们的影响战略。我们将共同为官僚机构行为者举办讲习班，以促进关于关系问责及其对改善弱势学习者学习成果的影响的讨论。共同制作的成果将包括：一个新的教育公平、质量和问责审计(EEQAA)工具，社区领导的组织将在CSEI的支持下管理该工具；多国协调员(他们领导教师会议并发挥监督作用)的专业发展模块；CSEI将通过其民间社会网络在全国传播的“教育质量”多维框架草案。该项目分析多标量问责关系的方法将挑战对体制改革的现有理解，并提供可直接应用于提高印度基础教育质量和公平的经验性知识和工具。除此之外，它的概念进步、产出和创新的过程跟踪方法将为关注改善弱势学习者学习结果的国家和非国家行为者提供具有国际意义的分析。

Global development policy is concerned with equitable learner participation and achievement, yet low learning outcomes and stark learning inequalities are persistent. Marketisation of provisioning is a growing trend in education that has complicated relations of accountability and regulation. This study aims to advance an understanding of accountability for improved learning outcomes for disadvantaged children by departing from the established approach of isolating specific variables for reform. Instead, it conceptualises accountability as systemic and relational. It is designed to show how multiple actors across the home, community, school and bureaucratic scales have particular norms and interests, modes of participation and regulatory roles that shape learning outcomes for disadvantaged children. It examines both the formal rule-based relations of these system actors, and the informal, everyday practices of accountability - all of which bear significantly on progress towards policy goals, yet are so far poorly understood. This project focuses on learning outcomes for 'disadvantaged learners' in India: children of primary school age who are disadvantaged by a range of structural inequalities, which are often cross-cutting, such as gender, location, caste, and class. It takes key quality and equity provisions in India's Right to Education Act (RTE) and examines how these are taken up in different ways, and with respect to differing understandings of education quality and equity held by actors across the four system scales of home, community, school, and bureaucracy. Empirical work takes place in two States, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, focusing on two districts and within each, two blocks which are purposively selected to enable intra-block, inter-district and inter-state comparisons. In each block, we sample ten schools, which include government, private and large scale 'alternative' provision to examine the accountability relations that surround differently positioned learners. The study design follows a sequential mixed methods approach, beginning with qualitative investigation and then using a quantitative survey to validate and extend the qualitative analysis. We will use an innovative process tracing approach, anchored in the sample schools, to track how specific policy initiatives stemming from RTE directives are understood by multiple actors across system scales. This enables the study to identify how their practical actions converge and diverge with goals for learning - as understood both by the RTE and these actors - and the impact on children's learning outcomes. Our partner NGO, CSEI will co-deliver our impact strategy. We will co-facilitate workshops for bureaucratic actors that promote discussion of relational accountability and its implications for improving learning outcomes for disadvantaged learners. Co-produced outputs will include: a new Education Equity, Quality, and Accountability Audit (EEQAA) tool which community-led organisations will administer with CSEI support; a professional development module for Cluster Co-ordinators (who lead teacher meetings and have monitoring roles); a draft multidimensional framework for 'quality of education' which CSEI will disseminate nationally via its civil society networks. The project's approach to analysing multi-scalar accountability relations will challenge existing understandings of systemic reform, and provide empirical knowledge and tools with direct application for improving quality and equity in elementary education in India. Beyond this, its conceptual advances, outputs, and innovative process-tracing methodology will deliver analyses with international significance for state and non-state actors concerned with improving learning outcomes for disadvantaged learners.