A Critical Discourse Analysis of Physical Education Policy in Nigeria: Power, Gender, and Inclusion

Physical education policy in Nigeria reflects and perpetuates particular power relations, gender assumptions, and inclusion ideologies that have rarely been subjected to critical scholarly examination. This dissertation conducts a critical discourse analysis of physical education policy texts and their enactment in Nigerian schools, making an original contribution to the sociology of physical education in sub-Saharan Africa. The corpus of analysis includes national education policy documents, curriculum guidelines, state-level education regulations, and examination syllabi spanning 2000 to 2024. Discourse analysis drawing on Foucauldian and feminist critical frameworks examines how dominant discourses construct physical education's purposes, valued physical practices, gender norms, and disability inclusion. The analysis is complemented by ethnographic policy enactment research in eight schools across Kano, Ogun, and Rivers States, examining how policy texts are interpreted, translated, and contested by teachers, students, and administrators. Findings reveal that official policy texts reproduce a performance and elite sport discourse that marginalises health, inclusivity, and student-centred learning as physical education objectives. Gender is constructed as a binary organising principle with implicit male physical activity norms presented as universal. Disability is largely absent from policy texts as a consideration, producing an implicit normate curriculum. Recommendations for counter-hegemonic curriculum development, inclusive policy language reform, and feminist pedagogical approaches in physical education are developed. Keywords: critical discourse analysis, physical education policy, Nigeria, gender, inclusion