Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Digital Pedagogy: Theoretical and Empirical Intersections in Igbo, Yoruba, and Hausa Educational Contexts

This study investigates the theoretical and empirical intersections between indigenous knowledge systems and digital pedagogical practices in Igbo, Yoruba, and Hausa educational contexts in Nigeria. The growing critique of digital education's cultural homogenisation effects demands rigorous inquiry into how indigenous African knowledge traditions can be meaningfully integrated with, rather than displaced by, digital instructional modalities. A multi-site qualitative methodology was employed across three research sites: Awka, Anambra State (Igbo context), Ibadan, Oyo State (Yoruba context), and Katsina, Katsina State (Hausa context). Data were collected through ethnographic observation in community and school learning settings, in-depth interviews with 60 community elders, teachers, and digital content developers, and participatory workshops in which indigenous educators and technologists co-created prototype digital lesson content. Hermeneutic phenomenological and critical ethnographic frameworks guided analysis. Findings reveal distinct epistemological orientations across the three cultural contexts that require differentiated digital integration strategies. Oral narrative, apprenticeship, and communal deliberation emerge as pedagogical principles that can be enacted digitally without epistemic violence if design processes remain community-led. The study proposes an original Triadic Indigenous-Digital Pedagogy framework that operationalises ethically grounded integration strategies. Keywords: indigenous knowledge systems, digital pedagogy, Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Nigeria