Towards an Afrocentric Adult Education Theory: Philosophical Foundations and Empirical Validation from Nigeria

This study undertakes the philosophical and empirical construction of an Afrocentric adult education theory grounded in African philosophical traditions and validated through empirical evidence from adult education contexts across Nigeria's geopolitical zones. The dominant theoretical frameworks in adult education globally, including andragogy, self-directed learning, experiential learning, and transformative learning, are products of European and North American intellectual traditions that embed cultural assumptions incongruent with African communal epistemologies, relational ontologies, and elder-centred knowledge authority structures. This study builds an Afrocentric adult education theory through a three-stage process: philosophical construction drawing on Ubuntu, Sankofa, and Maat philosophical traditions and critical engagement with Asante's Afrocentricity; community epistemological fieldwork documenting adult learning practices across traditional and non-formal settings in six states representing all geopolitical zones, engaging 80 knowledge holders, elders, and community educators; and empirical validation testing the theory's predictions against learner outcome data from 400 adult education participants. The resulting Afrocentric Adult Education Theory proposes seven core principles: communal knowledge co-production, elder-mediated wisdom transmission, cyclical learning progression, culturally embedded assessment, spiritual dimension of knowledge, language as knowledge carrier, and collective praxis orientation. Empirical testing confirms that learner engagement, retention, and empowerment outcomes are significantly higher in programmes that operationalise these principles compared to programmes using andragogical models alone. The study recommends the theory's integration into pre-service adult education facilitator training curricula in Nigerian universities.

Keywords: Afrocentric theory, adult education, Ubuntu, African philosophy, Nigeria.