Adultism

Despite global advances in children’s rights, young people are routinely disregarded, overpowered and excluded. This persistent discrimination – known as adultism – permeates family life, education, urban design, legal systems and political discourse.

In this groundbreaking book, the authors provide a comprehensive introduction to adultism from an academic perspective while also emphasising its practical implications. Drawing on rich, real-world examples and research, they analyse it as a systemic form of discrimination, exploring how it evolved and is reproduced through language, institutions and everyday practices.

Timely, accessible and urgent, this book offers a vision for resistance and transformation, outlining how adultism can be challenged – by both adults and young people – to co-create a more equitable future.

Author Biography

Manfred Liebel is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Technical University of Berlin and Honorary Professor of Intercultural Studies on Childhoods and Children’s Rights at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

Philip Meade is Lecturer in Childhood Studies and Children’s Rights at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam and in Child Protection at Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin.