ENHANCING TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING FOR MARGINALISED GIRLS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ROLE OF PEDAGOGICAL PROCESSES IN AN ACCELERATED EDUCATION PROGRAMME IN GHANA
type: CreativeWork
description: Despite global progress in school enrolment, many children enrolled in basic education still achieve learning outcomes that are only slightly better than those children who never attended school. Additionally, millions of children remain out of school altogether. The ones most affected are those from poor, marginalised backgrounds, particularly girls, who face structural barriers related to poverty and restrictive cultural norms that reinforce their marginalisation. Transformative learning, which is concerned with empowering learners to overcome these barriers while fostering societal change, is increasingly recognised as crucial for improving learning outcomes for marginalised groups. However, the practice of transformative learning, particularly the teaching approaches and methodologies used to challenge and address these structural barriers––referred to in this study as transformative pedagogy—remains underexplored. This is particularly true in low and lower-middle-income countries, where pedagogy, though a significant barrier to learning, is frequently overlooked in educational interventions and research. This research aims to address this gap by exploring how the pedagogical processes in a community-based accelerated learning programme in southern Ghana, can foster transformative learning for marginalised out-of-school girls. The Strategic Approach to Girls' Education (STAGE) programme, intended as a "transformational intervention" for marginalised out-of-school girls between the ages of 15 and 19, is the focus. This programme aims to remove the structural barriers that prevent them from accessing education and adversely affect their learning outcomes. This study is grounded in transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 2003, 1997). However, a major limitation of the theory is that it has limited representation of marginalised groups and downplays the socio-cultural contexts that shape learning experiences. To address this gap, this study integrates the philosoph…
abstract: Despite global progress in school enrolment, many children enrolled in basic education still achieve learning outcomes that are only slightly better than those children who never attended school. Additionally, millions of children remain out of school altogether. The ones most affected are those from poor, marginalised backgrounds, particularly girls, who face structural barriers related to poverty and restrictive cultural norms that reinforce their marginalisation. Transformative learning, which is concerned with empowering learners to overcome these barriers while fostering societal change, is increasingly recognised as crucial for improving learning outcomes for marginalised groups. However, the practice of transformative learning, particularly the teaching approaches and methodologies used to challenge and address these structural barriers––referred to in this study as transformative pedagogy—remains underexplored. This is particularly true in low and lower-middle-income countries, where pedagogy, though a significant barrier to learning, is frequently overlooked in educational interventions and research. This research aims to address this gap by exploring how the pedagogical processes in a community-based accelerated learning programme in southern Ghana, can foster transformative learning for marginalised out-of-school girls. The Strategic Approach to Girls' Education (STAGE) programme, intended as a "transformational intervention" for marginalised out-of-school girls between the ages of 15 and 19, is the focus. This programme aims to remove the structural barriers that prevent them from accessing education and adversely affect their learning outcomes. This study is grounded in transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 2003, 1997). However, a major limitation of the theory is that it has limited representation of marginalised groups and downplays the socio-cultural contexts that shape learning experiences. To address this gap, this study integrates the philosoph…
author: Bretuo, Priscilla
keywords: Transformative Learning, Gender and Education, Marginalised Girls, Non-Formal Education, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Educational Inequality, Gender-Transformative Pedagogy, Socio-Cultural Norms, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Community Engagement in Education, African Philosophy and Education, Education and Social Change
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/52aec73e-be4a-4b25-a326-cc7341d45549/download
license: http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved
date published: 2025-07-01
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:00Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.120389