Systems Change for Gender-Transformative Education: Collaborative Pathways to Equity in Uttar Pradesh, India

• In Event: Partnerships for transformative systems change

Proposal

Integral to reexamining education systems to promote peace is a commitment to equity, justice, and transformation. Project GET (Girls’ Education for Transformation: Building an Ecosystem for Lasting Change) is part of the Spencer Foundation’s Vision Grants program, which supports collaborative planning for ambitious, interdisciplinary research on transforming educational systems toward equity. Our project brings together the SwaTaleem Foundation, a grassroots organization in India working in Uttar Pradesh (UP), alongside scholars at two US universities. UP, India’s largest state, is home to more than 23 million adolescent girls, many of whom face intersecting disadvantages of gender, caste, religion, and poverty (UNICEF, 2023; ASER, 2024).
Our work centers systems change, recognizing that inequities are upheld by interlocking elements - policies, institutional norms, resource flows, relationships, and societal attitudes - that must be addressed together for lasting transformation (Preskill & Gopal, 2014). Guided by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (1977), we examine influences from classroom pedagogies to governance to identify leverage points.
The project is also grounded in Gender-Transformative Education (GTE) (Hillenbrand et al., 2015; MacArthur et al., 2022), which challenges harmful gender norms while embedding teaching and learning in local languages, values, and lived realities. An intersectional lens (Unterhalter et al., 2020) ensures we attend to the ways caste, class, religion, and geography compound inequalities.
Methodologically, we combined improvement science (Cohen-Vogel et al., 2015) and participatory action research (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016; Tuck, 2009), creating cycles of co-learning, problem identification, and iterative design with adolescent girls, teachers, wardens, local officials, and NGO partners. This approach disrupts researcher–participant hierarchies (Coburn & Penuel, 2016), positioning community members as co-creators of knowledge and change.
In this process, we integrated quantitative and qualitative approaches. Large-scale datasets such as the National Achievement Survey (NAS), were used to surface patterns in enrollment, retention, and learning. At the same time, participatory tools—including photovoice, community dialogues, and drama—brought forward the lived experiences of students, families, and educators. Together, these data illuminate both systemic blind spots as well as pathways for reform.
Our early insights highlight two key lessons. First, systems change is not a static outcome but a long-term, nonlinear process of transforming the underlying conditions that sustain inequity. For girls in marginalized communities, this means addressing not only structural barriers in policy and resourcing but also relational shifts in participation, power, and local data cultures. Second, participatory strategies act as levers for transformation by moderating resistance, building trust, and creating collective ownership. Stakeholder engagement and adaptive learning help us ask: What signals that local shifts are evolving into systemic ones? How can education data itself be reshaped to reflect more inclusive epistemologies?
By situating this work within the CIES 2026 theme Reimagining Education and Peace in a Divided World, we argue that systems change, and GTE together build education systems that are not only equitable and inclusive but also peacebuilding. Here, peace is defined not merely as the absence of conflict but as the presence of dignity, justice, and opportunity for all learners.

Author

• Ananya Tiwari, Texas A&M University