An Examination of French Textbooks Used in Nigerian Junior Secondary Schools for Cultural Representation

Textbooks function as primary vectors of cultural content in foreign language classrooms, and the cultural representations they convey have significant implications for learner identity, motivation, and intercultural competence. This study examines the cultural content and representation in French textbooks currently approved for use in Nigerian junior secondary schools, focusing on three widely adopted titles. A qualitative content analysis methodology was applied, coding textual, illustrative, and dialogic content for cultural categories including daily life, family structures, food, celebrations, geographic settings, and characters of African and European origin. Quantitative tallies of cultural representation by region of origin supplemented the qualitative analysis. Results reveal a dominant orientation toward metropolitan French culture, with limited representation of francophone African societies, cultures, and geographic contexts relevant to Nigerian learners. Characters depicted in illustrations were predominantly European in appearance, and dialogues rarely referenced West African francophone settings or multilingual realities. Content analysed under the category of intercultural competence tasks was largely absent across all three textbooks. The study argues that this cultural mismatch constitutes a pedagogical limitation that reduces learner identification with French as a relevant regional language rather than a distant European language. Recommendations include development of supplementary culturally localised French learning materials aligned with the Nigerian context and West African francophone realities. Keywords: French textbooks, cultural representation, junior secondary school, Nigeria, intercultural competence