In Decolonizing the Mind, Ngugi wa Thiong'o highlights what he sees as the cultural alienation arising from the use of colonial, non-indigenous languages in instructing African school children. He refers to this process as colonial alienation, the separation of Africans from their native heritage and culture.

Language is a carrier of culture and is used by colonialists to transmit their culture to African school children. The medium of instruction in the classroom is the relevant colonial power's language, like English or French. But when school children return home, and in their ordinary, everyday lives outside the classroom, they use indigenous languages.

Among other things, this means that children become alienated from their immediate social environment. The process of linguistic colonization also serves to separate Africans from their culture and heritage. As wa Thingo'o points out, there is, therefore, no relationship between the child's written world, the language of his schooling, and the world in which he lives, the world of his immediate environment in the family and community.

This is all part of the colonialist educator's project to "catch them young," to induct African children into the ways of thinking of their colonial overlords. Because of this, African children become alienated from their indigenous culture and grow up to see the world as it is defined by the culture of the colonizer, through the language of imposition.