Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI)
The What Works Hub for Global Education is committed to learning at scale with equity, ensuring that education reforms improve foundational learning outcomes for all learners. Rarely is scale a one-size-fits-all approach – scaling requires adaptation of evidence-based principles to specific populations and contexts.
Why GEDSI matters
Implementation science helps identify what works, for whom, and under what conditions. A GEDSI lens pushes us further to examine where exclusion persists, how power dynamics operate in systems, and what must occur to reach those furthest behind.
Our strategy and approach
To support this overarching goal, the Hub has the following objectives:
- Provide global thought leadership on GEDSI within implementation science and scaling efforts – The What Works Hub for Global Education seeks to shape global dialogue on how education interventions can be implemented at scale in ways that improve outcomes for marginalised groups.
- Generate contextually grounded GEDSI evidence through partner country research and implementation – The What Works Hub for Global Education supports the generation of new GEDSI-related insights from country-level research and implementation efforts, informed by national GEDSI priorities and focused on adaptive education reform that is responsive to local contexts and accompanying exclusions.
- Mainstream GEDSI principles across Hub governance, operations and engagement.
The What Works Hub for Global Education’s approach to GEDSI advances the Hub’s vision of inclusive implementation at scale by embedding equity across research, practice and governance.
GEDSI blog series
Our GEDSI blog series explores how Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) can be embedded in education-focused implementation science research, sharing evidence, case studies and reflections on the opportunities and challenges of scaling inclusive education interventions.
The series is led in partnership with the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre at the University of Cambridge, which pioneers research into overcoming barriers to education – find out more on the REAL Centre website.
Featured and related content
The GEDSI blog series
See our list of GEDSI blogs.
Webinar: Integrating Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) into the implementation of foundational learning programmes
See information about our webinar on equity and inclusion in foundational learning.
Why foundational learning matters for girls: what the evidence tells us
Read the blog by Madhuri Agarwal.
Systematic review of Gender, Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion in implementation science research
Read the working paper by Laraib Niaz and Pauline Rose.