Based on an analysis of population and education policies from the 1960s and 1996, and on qualitative date collected at the national and local level in Niger, this thesis addresses two strands of inquiry. The first strand is concerned with observing the process of introducing, to the micro-level, education and family planning policies developed at the macro-level. The study highlights the points at which policy and implementation diverge. The often conflicting agendas of population policies and the programmes developed to implement them are explored, focusing in particular on family planning programmes which explicitly set out to reduce fertility rates, as well as on female basic education programmes which may not list fertility reduction as a goal but nevertheless are assumed to have an impact on fertility rates. The second strand of the study is concerned with beginning to illuminate the socio-cultural factors influencing local attitudes towards family planning and towards girls' schooling, and to begin to make links between the two issues. While the complexity of the relationship is such that it would be unreasonable to attempt to disentangle all of the factors involved in the space of this thesis, it is possible to begin to tease out a number of key issues and to investigate to what extent the relationship, which is so evident in policy discourse, is apparent at the local, village level. The purpose of the study is to re-visit the relationship between fertility and education and, having taken the issue of the socio-cultural context of Nigerien Hausa society into consideration, create an opportunity for critical analysis of wider issues affecting education and family planning policy development. The study aims to contribute to the debate regarding policy development and the need to account for the relationship between the macro-level family planning and education initiatives and the micro-level contexts for which they are intended.