Language Ideology and Educational Policy in Yoruba-Medium Schooling: A Multi-Site Ethnography Across Three States

Language ideologies embedded in educational policy shape the pedagogical treatment of indigenous languages in fundamental ways that transcend curriculum content, influencing teacher identity, institutional culture, and learner experience. This dissertation presents a multi-site ethnographic investigation of language ideology and educational policy in Yoruba-medium schooling across Oyo, Ekiti, and Ondo States, South West Nigeria, producing an original contribution to the sociology of language education in multilingual African states. Using multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork conducted over eighteen months across twelve schools, data were collected through participant observation, ethnographic interviews with teachers, administrators, students, and parents, and documentary analysis of school policy texts, inspection reports, and staff professional development materials. The theoretical framework integrates Woolard and Schieffelin's language ideology theory, Bourdieu's field theory, and critical educational linguistics. Existing ethnographic research on language education in Nigeria has been conducted primarily as single-site case studies, making cross-state comparative ethnographic synthesis rare in the literature. This dissertation makes an original contribution through its multi-site design and its development of a new analytical concept, contested pedagogical bilingualism, to describe the structural tension between official Yoruba-medium policy and institutional English-dominant ideological practice. Findings will document how teachers navigate conflicting language ideologies and how school-level cultures mediate the translation of state language policy into classroom practice. Recommendations will address systemic language ideology reform in teacher education. Keywords: language ideology, educational policy, Yoruba-medium schooling, ethnography, critical linguistics.