Adultism

Adultism is "the power adults have over children". More narrowly, adultism is defined as "prejudice and accompanying systematic discrimination against young people". On a more philosophical basis, the term has also been defined as "bias towards adults... and the social addiction to adults, including their ideas, activities, and attitudes".

The word adultism was used by Patterson Du Bois in 1903, and appears in French psychology literature in 1929, describing the influence of adults over children. It was seen as a condition wherein a child possessed adult-like "physique and spirit", and was exemplified by,

This definition was superseded by a late 1970s journal article proposing that adultism is the abuse of the power that adults have over children. The author identified examples of adultism not only in parents but in teachers, psychotherapists, the clergy, police, judges, and juries.

Adultism is defined as the "behaviors and attitudes based on the assumptions that adults are better than young people, and entitled to act upon young people without agreement". It is also seen as, "an addiction to the attitudes, ideas, beliefs, and actions of adults." Adultism is popularly used to describe any discrimination against young people and is distinguished from ageism, which is simply prejudice on the grounds of age; not specifically against youth. Adultism is ostensibly caused by fear of children and youth. It has been suggested that 'adultism, which is associated with a view of the self that trades on rejecting and excluding child-subjectivity, has always been present in Western culture'.

Fletcher suggests that adultism has three main expressions throughout society:

A study by the Crisis Prevention Institute of the prevalence of adultism found an increasing number of local youth-serving organizations addressing the issue. For instance, a local program in Oakland, California, describes the impact of adultism, which "hinders the development of youth, in particular, their self-esteem and self-worth, ability to form positive relationships with caring adults, or even see adults as allies", on their website.

Adultism is used to describe the oppression of children and young people by adults, which is seen as having the same power dimension in the lives of young people as racism and sexism. It is treated as a generalization of paternalism, allowing for the broad force of adulthood beyond males, and may be witnessed in the infantalization of children and youth. Pedophobia (the fear of children) and ephebiphobia (the fear of youth) have been proposed as the antecedents to adultism.Tokophobia, the fear of childbirth, may also be a precursor; gerontophobia, or its antonym, , may be extensions of adultism.

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