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A research project focused on primary school children in rural communities in South Africa.
Inequalities in education and health are deeply rooted in social and economic disadvantage.听This research investigates how schools work effectively with communities in rural areas by developing and evaluating a systems-oriented and multi-layered complex intervention.
The project aims to create the optimal practices, cultures and conditions to strengthen schools' organisational and professional capacities, and become enabling spaces for young children's improvement in learning and health.听
It started in February 2020 and will end in April 2023, and听is听funded by the ESRC.
Enabling Schools Toolkit
A whole-school intervention
Grounded in a holistic, philosophical approach to the "whole child"听education, this intervention brings together school leaders, teachers, and community members to nurture and enrich 6- to 9-year-old learners鈥� engagement in reading.
The design of the intervention is informed by a strong research-informed belief that school leaders and teachers in rural areas, together with community participation, can beat the odds and enable children to achieve and flourish despite adversity.
About the research
- Focus
Inequalities in education and health are deeply rooted in social and economic disadvantage. In South Africa, 38% of children live in rural communities and are significantly more likely to be deprived of opportunities for quality education and health-related quality of life than their less disadvantaged peers.
This research aims to address this persistent structural challenge and establish how schools can beat the odds and enable children to achieve and thrive despite their location in high-poverty communities.
The听project is grounded in an ethic of social justice and is led by a UK and South Africa interdisciplinary team from Education, Health, Psychology, Sociology, and Health Economics. This mixed methods research will establish a comprehensive, empirically grounded theory of practice 鈥� i.e. organising schools as enabling spaces for improvement in learning and health.
It focuses on the Foundation Phase of primary schooling (children aged 6-9) because:
- this is a critical period of transition from early childhood to middle childhood when early interventions can make a significant impact on long-term outcomes, and
- this is also a key transition phase when children begin developing a sense of belonging to quality schools that can provide protective environments for those who are 'at risk' because of their dysfunctional early childhood experiences.
Thus, in contrast to existing discrete and narrowly focused health interventions in schools, this research regards improving whole-child quality education (SDG4) as a health intervention in its own right to transform the health-related quality of life for children and adults (SDG3) in rural communities in South Africa.
By doing so, the research will make a timely contribution to understandings of how different sectors may work more effectively with schools to unlock the transformative power of education for the achievement of the other 2030 SDGs systemically and sustainably.
- Questions
- Are there education and health education models in rural primary schools that are sufficient to achieve the objective of improving academic and/or health and wellbeing outcomes for all pupils, especially the socio-economically disadvantaged and/or those in the Foundation Phase, in South Africa? What difficulties might they encounter or give rise to?
- What are the key structural, social and cultural challenges 鈥� injustices 鈥� that rural schools and their communities face in improving the learning and health-related quality of life for all children?听
- To what extent, and how, does a systems-oriented approach to building rural schools as enabling spaces for children鈥檚 learning and wellbeing improve schools鈥� professional and organisational capacities to effectively address social, cultural and structural challenges?
- What are the similarities and differences in terms of feasibility, acceptability and potential impact of this approach on children between schools with different characteristics of classroom practice (pedagogy and curriculum), conditions and capacities and between rural communities with different characteristics of social conditions and resources?
- How cost-effective, sustainable and replicable is this approach in transforming schools鈥� capacities and connections with local communities to substantially improve children鈥檚 learning and wellbeing in South Africa, and beyond?
- What are the implications for policy and practice in enhancing the potential of education, and school quality especially, as a means to achieve sustainable development in resource poor, socio-economically disadvantaged communities?
By answering these questions, the research will
- produce new empirical knowledge about the complex interface between schools, their communities and the social conditions and resources that deeply influence children鈥檚 quality of learning and quality of life in rural spaces in South Africa, and
- provide new evidence on how and why a systemically-connected approach has the potential of building healthy, effective schools that inspire children鈥檚 learning and improve their quality of life in more sustainable ways.
- Framework and innovation
In this research how children鈥檚 quality learning is constructed and supported in schools is grounded in a social-ecological interpretation of human development. This theoretical lens presupposes a process-oriented, 鈥榩erson x environment鈥� model of learning (i.e. indispensable interaction between person and environment).听
A distinctive feature of our methodology is to build on, and extend, research-informed knowledge about what successful schools (especially those serving socioeconomically disadvantaged communities) do to accelerate student learning and wellbeing. This is an often overlooked missing link in scaling-up research on education and health innovations.
A key consideration in this research is to refine school-community collaborative health education approaches in ways that they interact with (i.e. integrated and embedded), rather than add to (i.e. as discrete, add-on components) (Bryk, 2015; Gu et al., 2018), the complex classroom, curriculum and school systems.
Outputs
- Working papers
- Ann, L., du Preez, H., Basson, L., Ebers枚hn, L., & Gu, Q. The role of early childhood development & education in supporting children's learning and well-being in the context of rural education. Journal of Early Years Education (Submitted).
- Conference presentations
- Basson, L., Ebers枚hn, L., Murphy, P.K., & Gu, Q. (2023, January). The quality and sustainability of resilience-enabling complex school-based interventions in rural primary schools in the Global South: A Qualitative Evidence Synthesis [Conference Presentation]. Annual Conference of the Education Association of South Africa (EASA) 8 鈥� 11 January 2023.
- Symposium 鈥淪chools as Enabling Spaces to Improve Learning and Health-Related Quality of Life for Primary School Children in Rural Communities in South Africa 鈥� Part 1鈥�, 2022 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting (AERA) in Collaboration with the World Education Research Association (WERA) 2022 Focal Meeting, 25 April, Chicago (virtual), US.
- Gu, Q., Ebers枚hn, L., Callaghan, P., Mills, M., Higham, R. J., Ang, L., & Skordis, J. (2022). Researching School Enablement in Rural Communities: A Global Challenge.
- Ebers枚hn, L., Gu, Q., Callaghan, P., Mills, M., Higham, R. J., Ang, L., & Skordis, J. (2022). Reconceptualizing Research Rigor in Global Challenging Times.
- Abou Jaoude, G. J., Ebers枚hn, L., Rampa, K., Basson, L-M., Oosthuizen, M., Dingle, K., & Skordis, J. (2022). Using PhotoVoice to Explore Well-Being and the Role of Education in Rural South Africa.
- Symposium 鈥淪chools as Enabling Spaces to Improve Learning and Health Outcomes in Rural South Africa 鈥� Part 2鈥�, 2022 AERA Annual Meeting in Collaboration with the WERA 2022 Focal Meeting, 25 April, Chicago (virtual), US.
- Mills, M., & Higham, R. J. (2022). Social Justice in Rural Community Schools: Tensions and Dilemmas.
- Ding, H., Gu, Q., Graham, M., Ang, L., Du Preez, H., Callaghan, P., Ebers枚hn, L., & Themane, M. (2022). The Significance of School Leadership for Primary School Children's Learning and Health in Rural Contexts.
- Callaghan, P., Ding, H., Gu, Q., Wood, K., McGranahan, R., & Ebers枚hn, L. (2022). The Effect of Interventions for Improving Health and Academic Outcomes on Primary School Children Living in Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Communities.
- Symposium 鈥淩urality as a global challenge: Schools as Enabling Spaces to Improve Learning and Health-related Quality of Life for Rural Primary School Children Part 1: Schools as Enabling Space for Better Learning and Health Outcomes鈥�, 2021 WERA Virtual Focal Meeting, 18 March.
- Basson, L-M., Gu, Q., & Ebers枚hn, L. (2021). Introduction: The Concept and the Methodology.
- Themane, M., Gu, Q,. Ebers枚hn, L., Morris, R., Akinyemi, O, S., & Chiramba, O. F. (2021). The Significance of Schools and School Leadership.
- Ang, L., Du Preez, H., Mustafa, S., Mabasa, A., Gu, Q., & Ebers枚hn, L. (2021). Early Childhood Development & Education.
- Callaghan, P., Du Toit, P., Wood, K., Ding, H., Ebers枚hn, L., & Gu, Q. (2021). Health-Related Quality of Life.
- Symposium 鈥淩urality as a global challenge: Schools as Enabling Spaces to Improve Learning and Health-related Quality of Life for Rural Primary School Children Part 2: Why Justice and Capability Matter鈥�, 2021 WERA Virtual Focal Meeting, 19 March.
- Mills, M., Higham, R. J., Crafford, M., Hwenjere, R., Gu, Q., & Ebers枚hn, L. (2021). Systematic Educational Disadvantage: A Social Justice Lens.
- Ebers枚hn, L., Gu, Q., Basson, L-M., & Eksteen, A. (2021). Enabling Professional Capabilities.
- Abou Jaoude, G. J., Skordis, J., Gu, Q., & Ebers枚hn, L. (2021). The Capability Approach in Economic Evaluations.
- Protocol
- Gu, Q., Ebers枚hn, L. Callaghan, P., Basson, L., Ang, L., du Preez, H. Anna-Barbara Du Plessis, A.B. (2020). . PROSPERO 2020 CRD42020190938
Team
- 最准的六合彩论坛
Principal Investigator
- 笔谤辞蹿别蝉蝉辞谤听听- Director of the 最准的六合彩论坛 Centre for Educational Leadership and Professor of Leadership in Education听
Co-investigators
- Professor - Professor of Early Childhood and Pro-Director and Vice-Dean Research, IOE
- Dr 听-听听Associate Professor in Educational Leadership, IOE
- Dr 鈥� Research Fellow, 最准的六合彩论坛 Centre for Educational Leadership
- - Research Associate at the 最准的六合彩论坛 Institute for Global Health and Fellow of the 最准的六合彩论坛 Centre for Global Health Economics
- Professor - Inaugural Director of the Centre for Teachers and Teaching Research, IOE, and Professor in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership at Queensland University of Technology
- Professor , 最准的六合彩论坛 Institute for Global Health
- London South Bank University
- Professor , Associate Pro Vice Chancellor Research and Enterprise and Professor of Mental Health Science
- University of Pretoria
Lead investigator
- Professor - Director of the Centre for the Study of Resilience and Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the Faculty of Education
Co-investigators and researchers
鈥⑻� 听Professor - Associate Professor, Department of Physiology
鈥⑻� 听Professor Mahlapahlapana Themane (University of Limpopo)
鈥⑻� 听Dr - Researcher and Lecturer in Early Childhood Education (Wageningen University and Research)
鈥⑻� 听 鈥� Project Administrator
鈥⑻� 听Professor 鈥� Full Professor, Department of Science, Technology and Mathematics Education, University of Pretoria听
鈥⑻� 听 - Senior Research Assistant
鈥⑻� 听 - Senior Research Assistant
鈥⑻� 听 - Senior Research Assistant
鈥⑻� 听 - Senior Research Assistant
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