Education outcome variability in children with disabilities: Structure, Institution or Agency?

EVID develops knowledge for more equitable education for children with disabilities in primary schools in Ghana and Niger. It has four integrated components: one empirical/theory generative, one methodological, one assessing current tools for disability assessment and one on policy. The main activity is a 2-year study of 800 primary school children, 400 in each country, half with a disability and the others age-, gender- and class-matched peers. The children recruited for the study will attend 1st, 3rd and 5th grade in the school year 2021/22, and will be followed for two school years. We look for deviance (positive and negative) in children's trajectories related to success or failure. This type of study seeks to find solutions that are socially acceptable and economically realistic in practice. These solutions are relevant for developing sustainable local education strategies. Further, the project critically reviews the tools applied by collecting feedback from disability organizations, teachers, students and caregivers. Finally, the project derives socially acceptable and cost effective - and thus, sustainable - advice on policy and program design to support the education of children with disabilities in constrained economies. The data collection was originally supposed to have started in the school year 2020/21 - due to the C-19 pandemic, this was postponed for a year. In 2020/21 the project has to recruited PhD candidates in Niger, Ghana and Norway. We have developed interview guides and questionnaires, as well as applied for research permits in the respective countries. There have been regular meetings between all the partners on Zoom / WhatsApp. To identify children who should be included in the study, we carried out mapping of 9387 pupils in 1st, 3rd and 5th grade in selected schools in Niger and Ghana in November/December 2021.We asked the teachers to map the children's functional level using a form developed by the Washington group. Based on this, we made a sample of 575 children in Niger and 417 children in Ghana - half with a disability, and the other half without, matched for gender and age. In the period from February to June, we conducted a study in which the parents/caretakers and teachers of these children were interviewed. In addition to information about the cases and controls, we have also collected information via the parents about all the siblings of the children in the sample. This study was conducted from February to June 2022. We have conducted a follow up survey in 2023 aiming at all children involved in the first survey.

The project develops knowledge for more equitable education for children with disabilities in primary schools in Ghana and Niger. It has four integrated components: one empirical/theory generative, one methodological, one assessing current tools for disability assessment and one on policy. The main activity is a 2-year study of 800 primary school children, 400 in each country, half with a disability and the others age-, gender- and class-matched peers. We look for positive(/negative) deviance in children's trajectories related to success(/failure), assuming such lessons are relevant to sustainable education designs. We start with theory-derived assumptions on how factors related to beliefs, desires and opportunity, embedded in institutional and structural context, affect children with disabilities. During data collection, this set of theoretical assumptions will be enriched as the children's context is dissected. Model entities and activities will be brought to the forefront/abstracted following data gathering. The project also aims to assess how close monitoring and follow-up of children in this type of research projects affect trajectories, as it involves a control group of children in non-monitored schools. This aspect has relevance beyond the project: Even sophisticated formative-dialogue research and evaluations rarely have a comparison group to address dissonance resulting from their own presence. Because research and monitoring affect project results positively (encouragement by attention) or negatively (researcher design requirements restrict flexibility), this impacts scalability. Further, the project critically reviews the tools applied by collecting feedback from disability organizations, teachers, students and caregivers. Finally, the project derives socially acceptable and cost effective - and thus, sustainable - advice on policy and program design to support the education of children with disabilities in constrained economies.