Paper 1: Do we need yet another framework? How a thoughtful marginalisation framework can make all the difference.

• In Event: All does mean ALL: Supporting girls and young women to be visible, enter education spaces and participate in decision making

Proposal

To help understand the nuances around marginalisation and how best to approach it, GEC developed a Marginalisation Framework that identifies the key barriers and facilitators to achieving positive outcomes both in and out of school. This framework is grounded in a rights-based approach to education, considering both universal and contextual characteristics. It enables the profiling of individual girls or groups of girls who face barriers to education at the household, school, and systemic levels due to their unique combination of intersecting factors. Each GEC project used this framework to define their specific target groups and analyse the various barriers to education they experience.

Several key models and approaches informed the framework. Lewin's (2007) model of 'zones of exclusion from education' across the education lifecycle and UNICEF's Global Out-of-School Children Initiative's Five Dimensions of Exclusion (5DE) model supported identifying and targeting educationally marginalised children. At the core of the LNGB window is Sen's Capability Approach. In the context of girls' education, it supported looking at education beyond just access to schools and basic learning outcomes. It focuses on a girl's capability to live a good life in terms of the set of valuable 'beings and doings' to which she has access. It focuses on the idea that education should give girls real-life opportunities and choices. The capability approach acknowledges that education should address girls' specific needs and challenges, considering factors like gender stereotypes, societal expectations, and cultural norms that can limit their choices and opportunities. It aims to ensure that girls have the capabilities to thrive and succeed, regardless of their circumstances. Finally, the GEC used an intersectional lens and programming approach, recognising that multiple social identities such as sex, gender identity, disability, race, and ethnicity can interact and intensify inclusion and exclusion within society. This approach considers the historical, social, and political backdrop and the distinct experiences of individuals or groups. Additionally, it examines the power dynamics and hierarchies among various groups based on factors such as gender, race, class, sexuality, disability, and more.

The GEC Marginalisation Framework sets out educational marginalisation as both an outcome and a process through which individuals or groups are systematically denied their right to acquire academic or social capabilities through education, which results in their exclusion from social institutions, civic processes and economies. This can be temporary, long-term or even intergenerationally entrenched.

There is a clear distinction between social identities which can be universal and contextual, and the barriers that interact with these identities. In education, these barriers exist at the community, school and system levels. The process through which the identities and barriers interact determines an individual's social and academic outcomes and whether they are educationally marginalised. The framework prompted projects to understand what community, school and system barriers prevent girls and young women from completing their education cycle.

This paper will reflect on the development of the framework and how educationally marginalised individual experiences created a challenge for programming and portfolio management.

Author

• Emma Sarton, Cambridge Education