Making the elementary schooling system in India work for disadvantaged learners: a cross-scalar comparative study of accountability relations This project focuses on learning outcomes for 'disadvantaged learners' in India: children of primary school age who are disadvantaged by a range of structural inequalities, which are often cross-cutting, such as gender, location, caste, and class. It takes key quality and equity provisions in India's Right to Education Act (RTE) and examines how these are taken up in different ways, and with respect to differing understandings of education quality and equity held by actors across the four system scales of home, community, school, and bureaucracy. Empirical work takes place in two States, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, focusing on two districts and within each, two blocks which are purposively selected to enable intra-block, inter-district and inter-state comparisons. In each block, we sample ten schools, which include government, private and large scale 'alternative' provision to examine the accountability relations that surround differently positioned learners. The study design follows a sequential mixed methods approach, beginning with qualitative investigation and then using a quantitative survey to validate and extend the qualitative analysis. We will use an innovative process tracing approach, anchored in the sample schools, to track how specific policy initiatives stemming from RTE directives are understood by multiple actors across system scales. This enables the study to identify how their practical actions converge and diverge with goals for learning - as understood both by the RTE and these actors - and the impact on children's learning outcomes. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.