The Limits of Individual-Level Factors for Ghanaian and South African Girls’ Learning

Abstract Utilizing interviews from South Africa and targeted surveys from Ghana, this chapter examines how confidence and socioeconomic background work together to shape the learning of girls across these various contexts. The point of this chapter is to show why noncognitive skills emphasized in the existing literature on the education of youth are by themselves insufficient. Rather, girls in these contexts need strategies to respond to challenges as well as institutions that seek to create environments that eliminate the gendered barriers that they face.