Sociology of Education and Inequality Reproduction in Public Schools in Nigeria: A Bourdieusian Analysis

This study applies Pierre Bourdieu's sociological framework of cultural capital, habitus, and field to analyse how public schools in Nigeria reproduce social inequality rather than ameliorating it. Bourdieu's sociology of education argues that schooling systems systematically privilege the cultural knowledge, dispositions, and communicative styles of dominant social groups, thereby reproducing class-based inequality across generations. In Nigeria's highly stratified social context, where elite schools and government institutions operate in parallel systems, this theoretical lens offers important explanatory power. This study uses a qualitative research design, combining ethnographic observation in four secondary schools in Lagos and Kano, representing different socioeconomic catchments, with 40 in-depth interviews of teachers, students, and parents. Documentary analysis of school curricula, examination systems, and teacher assessment practices supplements the ethnographic work. Thematic analysis within the Bourdieusian theoretical framework is applied. Results reveal that school practices including curriculum language, examination format, teacher interaction patterns, and co-curricular opportunity access consistently advantaged students with higher cultural capital endowments from educated, urban, upper-income families. Students with rural or low-income backgrounds demonstrated habitus misalignment with institutional expectations that compounded academic disadvantage. The study concludes that Nigerian public schools function, despite equity policy rhetoric, as inequality reproduction mechanisms. It recommends curriculum reform to embed diverse cultural knowledge traditions, teacher training in cultural responsiveness, and targeted cultural capital bridging programmes for first-generation secondary school students.

Keywords: sociology of education, inequality, Bourdieu, cultural capital, Nigeria.