CARE-EI: A Community-activated Resilience and Equity Model for Educational Innovation in Marginalized Contexts

Top-down education reforms often underperform in marginalized contexts. They ignore local knowledge, uneven access, and weak system capacity. This chapter presents the community-activated resilience and equity (CARE-EI) model as an analytical framework for understanding educational innovation in such settings. The study uses a qualitative documentary multi-case analysis of initiatives from India, Kenya, and Sri Lanka. It examines how four pillars – Community Voice, Accessibility, Resilience, and Equity – appear across these cases. The findings show recurring patterns of structured participation, low-cost inclusive design, adaptive continuity, and targeted support for marginalized learners. The analysis also identifies key gaps in long-term impact evidence, equity measurement, and scalability. The chapter offers a conceptually grounded and practice-oriented framework for interpreting educational innovation in resource-constrained environments.