Developing an Original Theory of Agency in Young Nigerian Children Within Traditional and Formal Early Childhood Education Contexts

Children's agency, their capacity to act meaningfully on the world and participate in shaping their own developmental experiences, is conceptualised differently across traditional Nigerian and formal ECD contexts, and developing an original theory of children's agency that bridges these conceptual worlds makes a foundational contribution to Nigerian childhood studies and ECD theory. This study developed an original Theory of Children's Agency in Nigerian Early Childhood Contexts, drawing on childhood studies theory, philosophical analysis, and empirical research in traditional and formal ECD settings. A theory-building methodology combining systematic review of 72 children's agency and participatory childhood publications from 2018 to 2024, ethnographic research in 12 traditional community settings and 12 formal ECD centres across four geopolitical zones, and expert consultation with 25 childhood studies and ECD scholars was employed. Systematic review confirmed that existing children's agency theories (Corsaro, James, Prout) assumed secular, individualised, and rights-based agency conceptualisations incompatible with collectivist Nigerian childhood ontologies where children's agency is exercised within intergenerational relational webs. Ethnographic research documented 8 distinct agency expression patterns across traditional and formal contexts, with significantly greater child-initiated agency observed in traditional community settings than in formal ECD classrooms. The original Nigerian Children's Agency Theory proposes the concept of relational-communal agency (agency exercised within rather than against community structures), ritual agency (agency through ceremonial participation), and constrained-emerging agency (the developmental trajectory toward adult-recognised agency in formal settings). Expert review by 24 specialists confirmed the framework's original theoretical contribution.

Keywords: children's agency, early childhood theory, Nigerian contexts, childhood studies, original theory