Neighbourhood inequalities and perceptions of quality education: comparative insights from 14 cities in Africa and Asia

• In Event: Communities of practice and their influence on learning

Proposal

The international evidence on school enrolment, completion and outcomes points unequivocally to the advantages urban learners have over rural learners in low and middle-income countries (UNESCO, 2015; UNESCO GEM, 2014, 2017). However, to suggest that the urban advantage is universal or that it is evenly distributed across populations in cities is a vast oversimplification. Unpacking this assumption requires a more detailed examination of diverse urban realities. Currently little research looks across urban contexts at the quality of education, from the wealthiest neighbourhoods to the poorest, to explore how educational opportunity and its sustainability are linked to where and how people live.
The research underpinning this presentation represents a step towards addressing this gap. Our project is a large-scale consortium of partners across eight countries. Between 2016 and 2022, we have researched diverse neighbourhoods in two cities in seven countries in Asia and Africa: Bangladesh, China, India, the Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania. The research focused on spatial inequalities, the built environment, education and health. One of the key reasons for using neighbourhood as a spatial and conceptual unit of analysis is the association between neighbourhood factors, neighbourhood-level services, and a wide range of inequalities such as exposure to crime, access to quality health and education services, employment and life chances (e.g., Gillock & Reyes, 1999; Wang & Kintrea, 2019).
One of the project’s research packages has employed a household survey questionnaire conducted through face-to-face interviews in selected neighbourhoods of diverse characteristics, from informal settlements (‘slums’) to wealthy gated communities. The survey was conducted in 2021 (at various stages depending on the COVID situation in each setting) and targeted a randomly selected representative sample of approximately 14,000 households within our selected neighbourhoods. Among the items were 20 questions on education, including both formal education and non-formal education. The aim was to generate a rich international dataset that allowed comparisons within and across cities and across countries, and showing how different aspects of city life shape each other. In this presentation we focus on questions related specifically to the quality of schooling, including how respondents rated the quality of education offered in the neighbourhood, and their level of satisfaction with the schooling received by children, whether they attended locally or commuted to school elsewhere in the city. While the data analysis is currently ongoing, we are able to provide some preliminary findings on how these perceptions of quality play out in different kinds of neighbourhoods across the seven countries.

References:
Gillock, K. L., & Reyes, O. (1999). Stress, support, and academic performance of urban, low-Income, Mexican-American adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 28, 259-282. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021657516275
UNESCO. (2015). Education 2030 Framework for Action. Paris: UNESCO.
UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM). (2014). Teaching and learning: Achieving quality for all. Paris: UNESCO.
UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM). (2017). Accountability in education: Meeting our commitments. Paris: UNESCO.
Wang, Y. P. & Kintrea, K. (2019). Sustainable, healthy and learning cities and neighbourhoods. Environment and Urbanization ASIA, 10(2), 146-150. https://doi.org/10.1177/0975425319859129

Authors

• Yulia Nesterova, University of Glasgow

• Michele Schweisfurth, University of Glasgow