An Original Investigation into the Epistemological Foundations of Demography as a Discipline in Nigerian Academic Institutions

Demography as a discipline in Nigerian universities operates within a specific academic and institutional context that shapes what questions are asked, what data are used, and what policy claims are made, and critically investigating its epistemological foundations provides an original contribution to the sociology of demography as a discipline. This study conducted an original epistemological investigation into demography as a discipline in Nigerian higher education. A disciplinary epistemology research methodology was employed, combining bibliometric analysis of Nigerian demographic research output from 2015 to 2024 (521 publications), structured interviews with 45 Nigerian demographers from 12 universities across all six geopolitical zones, critical discourse analysis of demography curriculum documents from 10 universities, and expert validation with 20 demographic theory specialists. Bibliometric analysis showed that 73.4 percent of publications drew exclusively on Western demographic theory without modification, only 9.2 percent proposed original theoretical contributions, and southern zone institutions produced 78.6 percent of output. Interview analysis revealed widespread perception that demography was a primarily Western-defined discipline applied to Nigerian data rather than a discipline producing original Nigerian knowledge. Curriculum analysis showed that African demographic history was addressed in 30 percent of programmes and indigenous population knowledge in 15 percent. The original Epistemological Framework for Nigerian Demography proposes four disciplinary transformation priorities: indigenous data production, theoretical contribution norms, policy engagement standardisation, and pan-African demography integration. Expert review confirmed the study's original contribution to the sociology of demographic knowledge.

Keywords: epistemology, demography discipline, Nigerian academia, demographic theory, original contribution