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

全球发展政策关注的是公平的学习者参与和成就，但低学习成果和严重的学习不平等现象持续存在。在教育领域，供应市场化是一种日益增长的趋势，它具有复杂的问责制和监管关系。本研究旨在通过脱离孤立具体变量进行改革的既定方法，促进对改善弱势儿童学习成果的问责制的理解。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、学校和官僚层面的多个行为体如何具有特定的规范和利益、参与模式和监管角色，从而影响弱势儿童的学习成果。它审查了这些系统参与者之间基于规则的正式关系，以及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，但迄今为止却知之甚少。本项目重点关注印度“弱势学习者”的学习成果，即因性别、地域、种姓和阶级等一系列结构性不平等而处于不利地位的小学适龄儿童。本文以印度《受教育权法》（RTE）中的关键质量和公平条款为例，考察了这些条款是如何以不同的方式实施的，以及家庭、社区、学校和官僚机构四个体系尺度的参与者对教育质量和公平的不同理解。实证工作在恰蒂斯加尔邦和马哈拉施特拉邦两个邦进行，重点关注两个地区，并在每个地区有目的地选择两个街区，以便进行街区内、地区间和邦间的比较。在每个区块中，我们抽样了10所学校，其中包括政府学校、私立学校和大型“替代”学校，以检查围绕不同位置学习者的问责关系。研究设计遵循顺序混合方法方法，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跨系统尺度的多个参与者理解的。这使研究能够确定他们的实际行动如何与学习目标（RTE和这些行为者都理解）趋同和偏离，以及对儿童学习成果的影响。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。我们将共同为官僚行为体举办讲习班，促进对关系问责制及其对改善弱势学习者学习成果的影响的讨论。共同生产的产出将包括：一个新的教育公平、质量和问责审计（EEQAA）工具，由社区领导的组织在CSEI的支持下管理；为小组协调员（领导教师会议并发挥监督作用）提供专业发展模块；一份“教育质量”多维框架草案，CSEI将通过其民间社会网络在全国传播。该项目分析多尺度问责关系的方法将挑战对系统改革的现有理解，并为提高印度基础教育的质量和公平性提供直接应用的经验知识和工具。除此之外，其概念上的进步、产出和创新的过程追踪方法将为关注改善弱势学习者学习成果的国家和非国家行为体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.