Community Participation and Learning Outcomes among School Students: Policy Perspectives on Gender-Just Educational Innovation

Community participation has re-emerged as a key strategy for addressing learning deficits and educational inequities, particularly in rural and marginalised contexts. However, policy and research often treat community engagement as a neutral or technical input, with limited attention to its gendered dimensions. This paper examines a community-led educational intervention implemented in rural Tamil Nadu through a qualitative case study informed by feminist policy analysis. Drawing on programme documentation, gender-disaggregated participation records, and case narratives, the study analyses how learning spaces were relocated from schools to homes and community sites, and how women—especially mothers—emerged as central pedagogic actors. The findings show that learning improvements were closely linked to gendered processes of care, proximity, and emotional support, with particularly positive effects for girls facing constraints related to domestic labour, restricted mobility, and digital exclusion. At the same time, the intervention exposes tensions arising from the reliance on women’s unpaid educational labour. The paper argues that community participation can contribute to gender-just learning outcomes only when supported by policy frameworks that recognise, resource, and integrate community pedagogic labour within the public education system, rather than assuming it as voluntary care work.

Community participation; feminist education policy; gender justice

1. Azim Premji University. (2021). Loss of learning during the pandemic. Bengaluru. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

2. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York, NY: Macmillan. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

3. Government of India. (2020). National Education Policy 2020. Ministry of Education. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

4. Sivakumar.S(2022) Documentation of community-based learning interventions. Unpublished manuscript. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

5. UNESCO (2021) When schools shut: Gendered impacts of COVID-19 school closures. Paris. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

6. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

• Assessment of the Role of Artificial Intelligence in Repositioning TVET for Economic Development in Nigeria
• Teachers’ Use of Assure Model Instructional Design on Learners’ Problem Solving Efficacy in Secondary Schools in Bungoma County, Kenya
• “E-Booksan Ang Kaalaman”: Development, Validation, and Utilization of Electronic Book in Academic Performance of Grade 9 Students in Social Studies
• Analyzing EFL University Students’ Academic Speaking Skills Through Self-Recorded Video Presentation
• Major Findings of The Study on Total Quality Management in Teachers’ Education Institutions (TEIs) In Assam – An Evaluative Study