Interrupted Learning, Fragile Attendance and 'Out of School' Children in India (ILFA)

本研究的重点是入学但经历学习中断和脆弱出勤（ILFA）的儿童，这对他们的学习成果产生了负面影响。尽管印度的小学入学率几乎达到了普遍水平，但ILFA似乎是一种普遍存在的“学习贫困”形式，在为来自高度社会经济弱势社区的儿童提供服务的学校中很常见。然而，关于ILFA的模式和原因存在显著的证据差距，这与缺乏对这些儿童学习的系统问责有关。该项目旨在通过定性研究来解决这些证据差距，该研究扩展了早期将教育系统问责制概念化为关系和社会偶然因素的工作。该项目的证据也将富有成效地挑战围绕失学儿童的全球政策话语中的二元概念，因为尽管这些话语越来越强调“隐形”儿童，但经历过ILFA的儿童处于校内/校外区分之间，并挑战了“在学校”的概念。ILFA通过对阿迪瓦西（部落）和其他社区儿童的研究来解决这些问题，他们是印度社会经济最不利和教育边缘化的人群之一。它提供了一个深入的、多尺度的研究，以三所学校为基础，横跨拉贾斯坦邦南部的两个开发“街区”，这是RAISE项目以前工作过的地区。该研究开发并应用了一种“过程追踪”方法，该方法具有方法论创新，能够深入阐明影响边缘化学习者如何获得和参与学校教育的社会关系以及ILFA模式。在方法上，将网络映射和认知模型的视觉方法与访谈、焦点小组和参与者观察结合起来，将能够对概念生成问题做出深入的回应，这些问题包括：为什么在任何一所学校，有些孩子或多或少经常出勤，以及如何解释孩子的出席和缺席模式。通过采用这种创新的过程追踪方法，该研究将展示利益相关者如何行使代理和责任，并影响儿童的出勤和持续学习。这些发现将有助于发展对问责制及其对学习成果的影响的理解。这个为期12个月的项目分两个阶段展开，从定性的过程跟踪开始，从第8个月开始，通过行动学习来加强，这有助于确定扩大干预的可能点。该项目将通过对儿童出勤和学习产生积极影响的有效影响途径，建立合作伙伴和政府利用研究证据的能力。它将为我们的非政府组织合作伙伴Vidya Bhawan带来两个关键产出：共同设计的机构项目后行动计划，包括能力发展，这将为Vidya Bhawan正在60多所政府学校开展的大型持续项目提供信息；为Vidya Bhawan提供的初始教师教育项目提供投入，以及提高研究能力。项目的另一项产出将是一份以政策为导向的证据简报，以一种易于理解的形式为政策界汇集见解，有助于确保每个儿童的受教育权。对于关注《2030年议程》“不让任何人掉队”承诺和实现可持续发展目标4的利益攸关方而言，本简报将特别有用。将通过适合学术读者和发展机构从业人员的出版物，分享从劳工法的角度和关于边缘化儿童受教育权的关系问责制的概念性工作

This research focuses on children who are enrolled in school but experience interrupted learning and fragile attendance (ILFA), which has negative impacts on their learning outcomes. Despite India's record of nearly universal primary level enrolment, ILFA appears to be a prevalent form of 'learning poverty' that is common across schools that serve children from highly socio-economically disadvantaged communities. There are, however, significant evidence gaps about the patterns and causes of ILFA that are implicated in an absence of systemic accountability for such children's learning. The project seeks to address these evidence gaps through qualitative researchthat extends earlier work on conceptualising accountability in education systems as relational and socially contingent. The project's evidence will also productively challenge the binary in/out of school conceptualisation in global policy discourses around Out Of School Children, since despite the growing emphasis on 'invisible' children in these discourses, children who experience ILFA fall between the in/out of school distinction and challenge the concept of 'in school'.ILFA addresses these issues through research that focuses on children in Adivasi (tribal) and other communities who are among India's most socio-economically disadvantaged and educationally marginalised people. It offers an in-depth, multi-scale study anchored in three school settings, straddling two development 'blocks' in Southern Rajasthan, a region where the RAISE project had previously worked. The study develops and applies a 'process tracing' approach with methodological innovations that enable deep articulation of the social relations that influence how marginalised learners access and participate in schooling, and patterns of ILFA. Methodologically, the integration of visual methods of network mapping and cognitive modelling alongside interviews, focus groups and participant observation, will enable an in-depth response to conceptually generative questions about why, in any one school, some children are more or less regular in attendance, and what explains a child's pattern of presence and absence. By applying this innovative process tracing approach, the study will show how stakeholders exercise agency and responsibility and influence children's attendance and sustained learning. These findings will help develop understandings of accountability and its influence on learning outcomes.The 12 month project unfolds in two stages, beginning with qualitative process tracing which is augmented from month eight onwards by action learning that helps to identify possible points for scaled-up intervention. The project will build partner and government capacity to use research evidence via effective impact pathways that have positive effects for children's attendance and learning. It will generate two key outputs for Vidya Bhawan, our NGO partner: a co-designed institutional post-project plan of action, including capacity development, which will inform a large ongoing programme Vidya Bhawan is carrying out in over 60 government schools; and inputs for the initial teacher education programme that Vidya Bhawan provides, as well as research capacity enhancement. A further project output will be a policy-orientated Evidence Brief that brings together in an accessible format insights for policy communities that can contribute to ensuring every child's right to education. This Brief will be particularly useful to stakeholders who are concerned with the Agenda 2030 commitment to Leave No-One Behind and the achievement of SDG 4. Conceptual work on relational accountability from an ILFA perspective, and with reference to the right to education of marginalised children, will be shared via publications suited to academic audiences and practitioners in development agencies