Public discourse and scholarship espouse the subjective influence of clothing norms over the natural body as visual markers of the social boundaries of fashion. As a backlash to student fashion on campus with growing incidences of immodest dressing, most tertiary institutions particularly in Nigeria introduced dress standards. Scholars have elaborated on how fashion has been used to negotiate social boundaries of power, identity, status, gender, etc.They differed on the approval/acceptability and disapproval/unacceptability of the institutional control over clothing behaviour of adults. This article underscores the role fashion plays as an effective driver of social control and hegemony. Also, by underpinning sartorial practices in conformity to established institutional expectations and standards of appropriate nuances of formal dressing in institutions of higher learning. From an ethnographic standpoint, the study analysed the institutional standards of formal dressing or dress codes of different tertiary institutions in Nigeria as posted on their websites in addition to the participant method. This information is equally published in the students′ handbooks of these institutions. The post-structural Foucaultian approach to Discipline and Punishment is applied as an analytical framework. This explains disciplinary power as a mechanism of social control of the body in contemporary society through conformity to approved dress standards in a formal environment like the university. It is argued that the framework provides an understanding of the significance of social control which may be hampered by misconceptions about what other people think of clothing norms.
This paper is an exposition of the effects of multilingualism on national integration in Nigeria and the need for advancing English language education policy. Ever since its independence, Nigeria is yet to achieve the value of oneness and unity in diversity. The insurgence of ethno-cultural, religious, political, economic, and other tensions and conflicts in Nigeria have continued to undermine concerted efforts to achieve the desired national integration in Nigeria. In this paper, we argued that much like other ethnocentric dividing factors, the state of multilingualism in Nigeria has further led to ethnic division and national disintegration. Thus, the paper stresses on the value of strengthening English language education policy in Nigeria. The paper highlighted some of the challenges in maintaining English language as a medium of learning in Nigerian schools, past and present; and went further to suggest that a central language of communication and learning like English can encourage cohabitation and acceptance among the various ethnic groups. The paper identified those features of ethnic languages that militate against proper national integration within a single polity. The paper stresses that national integration can be achieved if Nigerians depoliticize language policy in the country, and emphasize on how English language as a common element can foster unity, understanding and development. The paper revealed the benefits English language policy in Nigeria can offer not just in national integration, but also in the advancement of the country in the international community.
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