Constructing the African Child in Nigerian Educational Discourse: A Critical Linguistic and Ideological Analysis

The discursive construction of the Nigerian child as a learner, a social being, and a developmental subject in educational policy documents, curriculum texts, and classroom language reflects ideological assumptions about childhood, knowledge, and the purposes of education that deserve systematic critical scrutiny. This dissertation develops a critical linguistic and ideological analysis of the construction of the African child in Nigerian educational discourse, examining the intersection of colonial educational legacies, post-independence nationalist ideologies, and contemporary global education governance discourse in the language of Nigerian educational texts. Theoretical foundations draw on critical discourse analysis, childhood studies, African education philosophy, and ideology critique in the tradition of Althusser and Eagleton, constructing an original analytical framework termed educational subject construction critique. The empirical corpus encompasses four text categories across a forty-year time span: national educational policy statements from the 1977 National Policy on Education to the 2023 National Curriculum Framework; selected textbook series for primary and secondary English, Social Studies, and Civic Education; official classroom observation instruments and teacher assessment materials; and curriculum reform committee reports and stakeholder consultation documents. Lexicographic and grammatical analysis of child reference in policy documents reveals a consistent construction of the Nigerian child as a recipient of national development investment rather than as an agent of knowledge construction. Textbook analysis reveals persistent colonial-era learning mode assumptions disguised under contemporary learning outcomes language. The dissertation argues for a counter-discourse of African child educational agency grounded in indigenous educational philosophies. Keywords: educational discourse, construction of childhood, Nigeria, critical linguistics, ideology.