‘Francophone’ education intersectionalities: Gender, language, and religion

Abstract

This chapter explores how the language of instruction could empower as much as dispossess children in Niger, a francophone West African country. In an attempt to improve learning outcomes, primary schools now increasingly teach in national languages. While many studies find that learning in a mother tongue in the early years of schooling is best for learning, others have found that transitioning to another language, in this case French, too quickly could result in suboptimal learning. Some of my research findings show that such attempts to improve learning outcomes could paradoxically dispossess children from the ability to learn, read, and even write. In the same country, in the same neighborhood, and sometimes in the same family evolve clearly charted paths of inequalities in learning. This chapter further problematizes the discourse on the use of African languages in “formal” learning spaces. In many African countries, the early years of schooling mark a sharp disruption from the initial sites of learning. Children go into a school, many view as foreign, to learn new concepts in a foreign language (in this case French). If introducing mother tongues could keep children in school longer with better outcomes, then it becomes a matter of social justice. But does it? What would social justice look like in a context where mastering French is a prerequisite for academic progress and, at times, a means for social mobility? What of agency when the desirability of local languages in ‘formal’ learning spaces remains low? The Hausa saying “ilimi hasken rayuwa” directly links the ability to lead a dignified life to the quest for education. Yet schooling in Niger constructs various forms of marginality based on the child’s gender, socioeconomic background, and linguistic capital.