A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPOSE OF THE EDUCATIONAL SOCIALIZATION OF THE NIGERIAN CHILD

ABSTRACT

The study was essentially concerned with the social, political and environmental discourses of the Nigerian environment. This was aimed at studying how they affect or encourage the educational socialization process of the Nigerian child. Several factors prevalent in the Nigerian space were analyzed. These where further analyzed to explicate how far they could hinder proper educational adaptation and socialization of the Nigerian child. The study also discussed and conceptualized who a Nigerian child is. With this, the study was able to narrow its concern to a particular developmental phase of life. So many issues related to child rearing and development within the Nigerian space were analyzed. It was discovered that the average Nigerian child is educationally disadvantaged in so many ways. In the study, it was discovered that child laboring has become a norm in the Nigerian context. It was discovered that children are now bread winners for some families. This they do through hawking of wares on major highways (which has a hazardous possibility of being knocked down by vehicles). The study also pointed out that the Nigerian child is exposed to so many health challenges on a daily bases as he goes on his child laboring activities. The study discovered that many of these activities that young children engage in tends to steal away the supposed bliss of their childhood. The study made use of philosophical tools such speculative, analytical and prescriptive tools of philosophical enquiry to carry out this research. Speculatively, The study having gotten these findings, prescriptively suggested the following recommendations: the study, having understood that some of the problems highlighted are linked with general problems of the country (like poverty and insecurity), this study concludes that government should become more responsive to such issues; that the government should place measures that makes child trafficking and child-laboring impossible; that governments should as well set up task-forces to implement “no street hawking” by minors; being that ‘quality education’ in the country is gradually becoming an asset of only the rich, the study suggested that quality education be made accessible to all. And the study recognized that the Nigerian child indeed needs to be heard and guided appropriately because most of them are facing novel challenges that need prompt attention by the government and concerned individuals before it becomes a major behavioral pandemic.