There is increasing recognition on the importance of focusing on people with disabilities in international efforts aimed at poverty alleviation. While universal education has been central to these efforts, the specific and additional needs of children with disabilities are often overlooked in policies and programmes. In order to gain a nuanced appreciation of the lives of young people with disabilities in a Ghanaian context, this paper draws on research conducted with young people with disabilities and their significant others in order to understand their educational journeys, employment prospects and perceptions of those around them. In addition to collecting primary data, the latest policy documents related to disability, education and employment are reviewed and statistical analysis undertaken based on the Housing and Population Census 2010. Our research highlights the barriers facing those with disability in accessing quality education. While education was recognised as paramount to leading a better life and participants noted benefits beyond employment such as gaining self-sufficiency and social benefits, unequal educational opportunities underpin some of the reasons for the widening of gaps between those with disabilities and their non-disabled counterparts. Furthermore, while education was seen as important for gaining employment, this was not the case in reality, as young people faced difficulties due to both physical and attitudinal barriers limiting their opportunities for economic and social participation in their communities. The paper concludes by noting that systematic changes in the policy arena are needed to enable youth with disabilities to take their rightful place in mainstream society.

Transitions to adulthood are usually defined by markers such as leaving school, starting a first job, leaving the parental home, forming a first union, marrying and having a first child. Youth policy remains strongly influenced by these linear transitions, and by the metaphor of a 'pathway' from school to work and adulthood, taking little account of poverty, and the significance of micro-social changes within personal relations, which in many rural cultures have considerable importance in transitions to adulthood. This paper utilises data on social and human outcomes of schooling, collected under the aegis of the RECOUP programme of research in the rural north of Ghana and India. Micro-reconstructions of gender roles/relations associated with communication, autonomy and decision-making are shown to have subtle implications for the transformation of young people's lives. The findings suggest that education may have unexpected and often complicating effects on 'domestic transitions', particularly on the private/intimate spheres of gender relations. Transition studies need to reconsider how independent action is framed within strong patriarchal cultures.

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