Picture this! Evidence Hub on Gender and Learning’s Evidence Big Picture

• In Event: Gender, Equity, and Education for Peace in a Divided World

Proposal

The Evidence Hub on Gender and Learning combines learning to do with doing to learn. This means bringing together evidence mapping and synthesis with real-world testing through targeted grantmaking. The design of The Hub rests on a deliberate interplay between insight and action, with each element strengthening the other. In our first phase, we’ll deepen our understanding of the linkages between foundational learning, gender, and later outcomes and this paper will present our Big Picture, focusing on evidence strength and gaps.

The Big Picture is a structured, visual map that synthesizes existing evidence on how gender and gender norms shape learning and dropout and how foundational learning, in turn, influences outcomes for girls and boys as they move through adolescence and into adulthood. These outcomes go beyond learning and school completion that are often the focus on gender and education syntheses to explore impact on adolescent health, early pregnancy, child marriage, economic participation and productivity. By mapping these dynamics through evidence chains and causal pathways, the Big Picture offers an integrated view of what is known, where uncertainties remain, and where the most significant evidence gaps lie.

We follow a modified PRISMA methodology for evidence review, paired with AI-enabled tools to accelerate synthesis. This is a structured process that balances breadth and relevance, surfacing high-confidence linkages, underexplored intersections, and areas where further investment is needed. We’ll capture and organize by thematic pathways—for example, learning → retention; or learning → sexual and reproductive health and rights; or menstrual health → learning; or household chores and care work → learning —and will draw on existing evidence catalogues to trace long-term impact indicators and their earlier proxies. Further we use web signposting to rapidly synthesize significant qualitative and quantitative data through a semi-automated process to explore existing evidence across contexts, assess relevance, and surface gaps and insights. Parameters that prioritise breadth over depth aim not to re-review well-established areas or to conduct a systematic review, but to build on the existing evidence base in a structured way that reveals the strength of linkages, gaps in our understanding, and thereby sets the stage for targeted investment..

This paper will present the findings of the Evidence Hub on Gender and Learning’s initial synthesis effort and set the stage for four years’ of investment and action as the Hub sets up to make grants in this area to help fill the gaps and move the field forward.

Authors

• Lea Simpson, Brink

• Amy Jo Dowd, Brink Foundation

• Laura Hinson, Consultant