Childism

Childism can refer either to advocacy for empowering children as a subjugated group or to prejudice and/or discrimination against children or childlike qualities.{{Cite web|url=https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/childism|title=Childism|website=Wiktionary|date=10 December 2022 }} 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 former can be connected with critical theories like feminism,{{Cite book |last=Rosen |first=Rachel, and Katherine Twamley |title=Feminism and the Politics of Childhood. |date=2018 |publisher=UCL Press |isbn=1787350649 |location=London, UK}} decolonialism,{{Cite journal |last=Biswas |first=Tanu |date=2023 |title=Becoming good ancestors: A decolonial, childist approach to global intergenerational sustainability |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/chso.12722?domain=author&token=CDDWFZWG2SGIKYSEHRQ2 |journal=Children & Society |volume=37 |issue=4}} and environmentalism.{{Cite journal |last=Stirling |first=Bridge |date=2020 |title=Childhood, Ecological Feminism, and the Environmental Justice Frame |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220204153318id_/https:/journals.openedition.org/eccs/3632 |journal=Canadian Studies: Revue interdisciplinaire des études canadiennes en France |volume=88 |pages=221–238}} The latter concept finds it critical equivalence in similar concepts{{Cite journal |last=Wall |first=John |date=2006 |title=Childhood Studies, Hermeneutics, and Theological Ethics |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/505893 |journal=The Journal of Religion |volume=86 |issue=4 |pages=523–548}} such as ageism discrimination against elderly people,{{Cite web |last=Weir |first=Kirsten |date=March 1, 2023 |title=Ageism is one of the last socially acceptable prejudices. Psychologists are working to change that |url=https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/03/cover-new-concept-of-aging |website=American Psychological Association}} adultism adult power and adult norms{{Cite journal |last=Oto |first=Ryan |date=2023-10-02 |title="This is for us, not them": Troubling adultism through a pedagogy of solidarity in youth organizing and activism |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00933104.2023.2208538 |journal=Theory & Research in Social Education |language=en |volume=51 |issue=4 |pages=530–558 |doi=10.1080/00933104.2023.2208538 |issn=0093-3104|url-access=subscription }} or patriarchy.

The concept is first described and explored in an article by Chester M. Pierce and Gail B. Allen in 1975.{{Cite journal|title=Childism|last1=Pierce|first1=Chester M.|last2=Allen|first2=Gail B.|journal=Psychiatric Annals|year=1975|volume=5|issue=7|pages=15–24|doi=10.3928/0048-5713-19750701-04|url=https://www.healio.com/psychiatry/journals/psycann/1975-7-5-7/%7B289c676d-8693-4e7a-841e-2ce5d7f6d9f2%7D/childism|url-access=subscription}} It was used in time in the 1990s in literary theory by Peter Hunt to refer to "to read as children."{{Cite book|title=Criticism, Theory, and Children's Literature.|last1=Hunt|first1=Peter|publisher=Basil Blackwell|year=1991|isbn=0-631-16231-3}} 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.{{Cite book |last=Wall |first=John |title=Ethics in Light of Childhood |publisher=Georgetown University Press |year=2010 |isbn=9781589016927 |location=Washington, DC |publication-date=2010}} 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.{{Cite book|title=Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children|last=Young-Bruehl|first=Elisabeth|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2012|isbn=978-0-300-17311-6}}

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 the [https://www.childism.org/ Childism Institute], and international research organization based in Rutgers University, University of Stavengar, and Roskilde University.