Reimagining Educational Evaluation for Systemic Change: Community-Driven Ecosystems for Adolescent Girls in India

This project outlines a planning initiative to co-create a gender-transformative educational ecosystem in Uttar Pradesh, India—home to over 23 million adolescent girls. Grounded in intersectionality, culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy (CRSP), and gender-transformative education (GTE), this work centers community voices to tackle systemic inequities in girls’ education. Through an explicit systems change lens, the project evaluates the structures, relationships, and norms shaping access, retention, and learning across the K-12 landscape. Using improvement science and participatory methods, stakeholders—including educators, government officials, and adolescent girls—co-construct and assess practices at multiple levels of the education system. Additionally, critical examination of large-scale education data sources reveals systemic blind spots to contribute towards an ecosystem-wide framework for systems change. By integrating intersectionality and a systems change lens, we reimagine evaluation as a tool for social justice, aligning with AEA 2025’s theme of fostering collaborative leadership and empowering communities to drive transformative change.

Anupam Ahuja; Zoya Chadha; Nidhi Kinhal; Vaibhav Kumar; Disha Srivasatava; Shams Yousuf; Payal Shah