Parents in education: Holistic and indigenous perspectives around schooling and learning in Northcentral Nigeria

25 April, 5-6:30pm 

EH19, Essex House, University of Sussex (Campus Map)/ Zoom 

https://universityofsussex.zoom.us/j/93375685140?pwd=SUJ0a2dnVFZOZHJGS3NheXEyTW9Ddz09

This seminar shares findings from a study of rural African parents' perspectives on, and involvement in, schooling in two rural Yorùbá primary school-communities in North central Nigeria. The study employed an ethnographic approach, embedded within a situated Ọmọlúàbí moral ethics framework, and applied thematic and capabilitarian analyses within a Sen-Bourdieu conceptual framework. The seminar focuses on parents’ perspectives and reveals parents’ articulation of ethnotheories, or cultural beliefs about children’s lives, which transcended schooling and integrated other valued forms of learning: learning at home, Islamic schooling, and informal apprenticeships. Various capabilities were desired from these diverse forms of learning, and some limitations identified. Specific to schooling, parents constructed theirs and teachers’ roles in similar and notably different ways. The seminar invites participants to reflect on parental (and carer) ethnotheories, and the implications of the findings on schooling in rural African contexts.

Speaker bio:

Dr Bukola Oyinloye is a Research Associate at the University of York. Her research explores how marginalised or non-dominant groups negotiate access to, and experience, education at different levels. Her doctoral research illuminated how non-dominant groups and families negotiate learning systems in low-income African contexts. More recently, she has also examined inequalities in access to postgraduate research in the UK, with a focus on minoritised ethnic applicants. Her research has a particular focus on the methods and ethics of researching with marginalised and non-dominant groups, and she has led on researcher development projects which support researchers to deepen reflexivity and embed reciprocity in cross-cultural research. Dr Oyinloye’s research is informed by previous Senior research-related roles in donor-funded education interventions in diverse contexts.