Study title

The principal data collection units were sites where policy was discussed and acted on. These comprised 2 national Departments of Education (in Kenya and South Africa), 2 provincial departments, 2 schools, 2 NGOs located in large cities, and 2 located in rural areas. Data collected included interviews, focus groups, observations, analysis of school records and records of report back meetings. In addition 12 interviews with staff in global organisations dealing with this policy area were interviewed. Comparative case study was used in Kenya and South Africa to investigate similar kinds of relationship – negotiations with global policy agendas on gender, education and poverty reduction – in somewhat different sites. A selected range of units of analysis were examined for hierarchies in which policy and practice are related from global levels, ranked ‘above’ the national and local level (vertically) and forms of connection, exclusion or boundary setting between different kinds of organisation (horizontally). Both countries have in place policies on poverty, education and gender equality, and are active global policy players. However, they differ in their engagements with global policy transfer, histories of attention to gender. There was thus potential to look at how the cases did and did not vary, and the explanatory weight that could be accorded to local conditions. Five case studies were conducted in each country: the National Department of Education, South Africa, Ministry of Education in Kenya, a provincial department in each country, a matched school attended by children from a peri-urban community with high levels of poverty, a rural NGO working on education and poverty, and a global NGO engaged with the global policy agenda and local implementation. The project aims to examine initiatives which engage with global aspirations to advance gender equality in and through schooling in contexts of poverty. It looks at how these are understood, who...