Childism can refer either to advocacy for empowering children as a subjugated group or to prejudice and/or discrimination against children or childlike qualities. It can operate thus both as a positive term for a movement, like the term

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

, as well as a critical term to identify age-based prejudice and discrimination against children, like the term

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

. The former can be connected with critical theories like feminism, decolonialism, and environmentalism. The latter concept finds it critical equivalence in similar concepts such as

ageism Ageism, also called agism in American English, is a type of discrimination based on one's age, generally used to refer to age-based discrimination against Old age, elderly people. The term was coined in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe this ...

discrimination against elderly people,

adultism Adultism is a bias or prejudice against children or youth. It has been defined as "the power adults have over children", or the abuse thereof, as well as "prejudice and accompanying systematic discrimination against young people", and "bias tow ...

adult power and adult norms or

patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term ''patriarchy'' is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in fem ...

. The concept is first described and explored in an article by Chester M. Pierce and Gail B. Allen in 1975. It was used in time in the 1990s in literary theory by Peter Hunt to refer to "to read as children." In the early 2000s, it was developed by John Wall into a positive term equivalent to feminism, such as in "Childhood Studies, Hermeneutics, and Theological Ethics" and extensively in ''Ethics in Light of Children''. An alternative treatment of childism as a negative phenomenon is found in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's last work, published posthumously, ''Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children''. Childism has become a key theoretical lens for understanding law, rights, history, literature, societies, and much else. In its positive sense it is the focus of th
Childism Institute
and international research organization based in Rutgers University, University of Stavengar, and Roskilde University.

References

{{Reflist Childhood Children's rights Youth rights Ageism 1975 neologisms