Ideological Construction of Deviance in Street Children’s Discourse in Southwestern Nigeria

This paper explores how Nigerian street children construct deviance in their discourse, which has been overlooked in previous research. Through participant observation and interviews with 104 street children and Critical linguistic qualitative analysis using the CDA approach, findings show that deviance was constructed as alignment with street abnormality and a struggle for survival. Employing strategies such as evocations of sympathy, commonality, trivialization, and overgeneralization, their constructions reflect street ideology and beliefs which highlight social inequality and class differences between streets and mainstream society. These beliefs shape street childrens cognitive models, value systems and influence their worldview.