Adultcentrism: the regime of the “adult establishment” The word ‘childhood’ comes from the Latin ‘infantia’. It comes from the prefix “in-” (meaning “not”) and “fari” (meaning “to speak”). The original meaning of the term referred to the period of life when children are unable to speak or express themselves fully verbally. Over time, however, the meaning of “childhood” has expanded to encompass the entire life process from birth to adolescence. Nothing could be further from the truth; the etymology of the word becomes indicative of what is happening: in the social structure, the voice of children (and adolescents) has no recognised place, so that – literally – children and adolescents cannot speak. This invalidation and domination have a name: adultcentrism.
Tension release, an imposition of adulthood
The dynamics of oppression are a constant in societies: race, identity, gender… the intersectionality of all these issues is also crossed by age. UNICEF states directly that adultcentrism is based on the social order of patriarchy, which establishes a system of domination and power in which “men dominate the public sphere, government, religion and the private sphere (the home). Women are subjugated or excluded because of their gender, and the youngest because of their age”.
Para el sociólogo Claudio Duarte Quapper, la sociedad occidental está marcada por la condición adultocéntrica y se refleja en las relaciones de dominio entre diferentes clases de edad, desde la niñez hasta la adultez mayor. The expert points out that these relationships and the social expectations associated with each group have been shaped throughout history by economic, cultural, and political factors that have embedded these dynamics in social imaginaries. This adult-centred condition influences both the material and symbolic reproduction of society, so it would be an issue rooted in the structure of society and established as a model of social organisation.
The existing power structure around age generates a series of tensions and conflicts that have been channelled through “an intervention of the adult establishment”, according to the study “Childhood on the move: from adultcentrism to emancipation”. The synthesis gives a clear example: “an adult-centred society can no longer expect children’s rights to be elaborated and defined entirely by adults, without the participation of the new generations, as was the case with the International Convention on the Rights of the Child”. The authors argue that conflict resolution is imposed from adulthood and involves “the use of physical force to implement legal bodies, political regulations, public policies and discourses that, while claiming to be scientific, function as instruments of control”. As part of the analysis, a key hypothesis is attributed to the fact that “the cumulative process of mechanisms only aggravates and perpetuates existing conditions of inequality and domination”.
Consequences of the system and its perpetuation dynamics
Regarding the consequences of this hierarchy, the Instituto Psicológico Cláritas points out that “this way of exercising power has direct consequences, especially for children”. For example, phrases such as “you’ll understand when you grow up” can lead children to believe that “it is the adult who, in addition to power, has the intelligence and ability to understand and predict the different events of life”. This would deprive them of autonomy and affect the development of critical thinking and the inability to “generate adequate and adaptive ideas about the world”.
In the case of adolescents, the eternal targets, the UNICEF report points out a blatant error that prevents them from developing as people with their own identity: “Adolescents are not ‘less adults’ or underdeveloped ‘little adults’. Adolescence is not a stage of preparation for adulthood, but a valid and respectable way of being a person today. The ‘restless’ nature attributed to the adolescent stage is another mechanism for controlling their behaviour. The social construction of adolescence as a “conflictive transition in preparation for adulthood” has had an impact and has been installed in the common social imaginary, systematically invalidating this age group.
The report “Adultocentrism and local public policies: youth perceptions and proposals” by the Síndic de Greuges of Barcelona analyses how this system is perpetuated and draws a series of conclusions that point to the management and implementation of public policies themselves: “As we have observed in the study, both in youth discourses and in more institutional discourses, there is a significant distance between young people and administrations, which is expressed in different feelings and perceptions: remoteness, neglect, relationship difficulties, undermining and lack of spaces and listening, among others”.
