Childism can refer either to advocacy for empowering children as a subjugated group or to prejudice and/or discrimination against children or childlike qualities.[1] It can operate thus both as a positive term for a movement, like the term feminism, as well as a critical term to identify age-based prejudice and discrimination against children, like the term racism. The latter concept finds it critical equivalence in similar concepts such as ageism discrimination against elderly people,[2] adultism adult power and adult norms[3] or patriarchy. The concept is first described and explored in an article by Chester M. Pierce and Gail B. Allen in 1975.[4] It was used in time in the 1990s in literary theory by Peter Hunt to refer to "to read as children."[5] An extensive treatment of childism as a negative phenomenon is found in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's last work, published posthumously, Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children.[6]
In the field of childhood studies, and most commonly in Europe, childism is a positive phenomenon based on John Wall's work since 2006 and book, Ethics in Light of Childhood.[7] Recently, the Childism Institute has been formed at Rutgers University Camden, US, holding its inaugural meeting on 11 June 2020. The Childism Institute is a network of international researchers and advocates devoted to "empowering children by critiquing [adultist] norms and structures".[8] Among other things, the Childism Institute maintains a database of research which either employs the concept of childism or is in close alignment with it.
In the field of international human rights studies childism is a critical phenomenon based on Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's work, used to explore intersectional discrimination against children that challenge the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.[9]
References
- ^ "Childism". Wiktionary. 10 December 2022.
- ^ Weir, Kirsten (March 1, 2023). "Ageism is one of the last socially acceptable prejudices. Psychologists are working to change that". American Psychological Association.
- ^ Oto, Ryan (2023-10-02). ""This is for us, not them": Troubling adultism through a pedagogy of solidarity in youth organizing and activism". Theory & Research in Social Education. 51 (4): 530–558. doi:10.1080/00933104.2023.2208538. ISSN 0093-3104.
- ^ Pierce, Chester M.; Allen, Gail B. (1975). "Childism". Psychiatric Annals. 5 (7): 15–24. doi:10.3928/0048-5713-19750701-04.
- ^ Hunt, Peter (1991). Criticism, Theory, and Children's Literature. Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-16231-3.
- ^ Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth (2012). Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-17311-6.
- ^ Wall, John, Ethics in Light of Childhood. Georgetown University Press, 2011. ISBN 9781589016927
- ^ "About". Childism Institute. Retrieved 2021-05-07.
- ^ Adami, Rebecca; Dineen, Katy (2021-06-15). "Discourses of Childism: How covid-19 Has Unveiled Prejudice, Discrimination and Social Injustice against Children in the Everyday". The International Journal of Children's Rights. 29 (2): 353–370. doi:10.1163/15718182-29020001. ISSN 1571-8182.
This page was last edited on 23 June 2024, at 01:43