Being a good citizen in a postcolonial context: Justice-oriented citizenship implications of Nigerian teachers’ civic education ideologies

ABSTRACT

Drawing on a Nigerian example and framed around postcolonial theory, this study explored teachers’ conceptions of a good citizen and civic education ideologies in postcolonial hybrid-identity contexts, using qualitative data collected from 21 civic education teachers. Results revealed that personally responsible and participatory citizenship ideologies, along with a communitarian perspective, dominate teachers’ beliefs about good citizenship and civic education, with participation in traditional African sociopolitical systems omitted. Justice-oriented citizenship was rarely emphasized. Teachers’ reference to social change as a civic education goal emphasized individuals’ responsibilities with limited consideration of structural impediments. Lessons learned include that civic education is used to maintain power structures; ethnocentrism, violence, and government’s non-accountability limit teachers’ engagement with critical citizenship; structural violations are excluded from human rights classroom discourses; active participation is centered at national spaces; and teachers frame leadership as the only efficient avenue for meaningful active participation. Consequently, the author recommends a rethinking of critical civic education to incorporate Indigenous civic practices and the realities of challenging asymmetric structures to better position the subject for justice-oriented citizenship and democracy development.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizenship
• citizenship ideologies
• civic education
• educating for democracy
• justice-oriented citizenship
• Nigeria
• postcolonial democracy

Acknowledgments

My gratitude goes to the 12 school Heads that approved requests to interview their teachers and the teachers that gave consent to participate in the study. I specially thank my student, Victor Onele, for assisting with the transcription of the recorded interviews.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Jungle justice refers to the killing of an accused person or suspected criminal without a judicial trial by a mob who acts on impulse instead of logic.