Its impacts are largely regarded as negative, except in cases related to child protection and the overriding social contract.
"[6] More familiar to current usage, the word was used by Patterson Du Bois in 1903,[7] with a meaning broadly similar to that used by Jack Flasher in a journal article seventy-five years later.
In France in the 1930s, the same word was used for an entirely different topic, the author describing a condition wherein a child possessed adult-like "physique and spirit": That 1930s usage of the word in France was superseded by a late 1970s American journal article proposing that adultism is the abuse of the power that adults have over children.
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.
Advocates of using the term 'ageism' for this issue also believe it makes common cause with older people fighting against their own form of age discrimination.
In a publication published by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, University of Michigan professor Barry Checkoway asserts that internalized adultism causes youth to "question their own legitimacy, doubt their ability to make a difference" and perpetuate a "culture of silence" among young people.
[9] Institutional adultism may be apparent in any instance of systemic bias, where formalized limitations or demands are placed on people simply because of their young age.
Policies, laws, rules, organizational structures, and systematic procedures each serve as mechanisms to leverage, perpetuate, and instill adultism throughout society.
[30][31] Institutions perpetuating adultism may include the fiduciary, legal, educational, communal, religious, and governmental sectors of a community.
An increasing number of social institutions are acknowledging the positions of children and teenagers as an oppressed minority group.
[39][40] Research compiled from two sources (a Cornell University nationwide study, and a Harvard University study on youth) has shown that social stratification between age groups causes stereotyping and generalization; for instance, the media-perpetuated myth that all adolescents are immature, violent and rebellious.
A reactive social response to adultism takes the form of the children's rights movement, led by young people who strike against being exploited for their labor.
[44] Current researchers whose work analyzes the effects of adultism include sociologist Mike Males[45] and critical theorist Henry Giroux.
[52] Common practice accepts the engagement of youth voice and the formation of youth-adult partnerships as essential steps to resisting adultism.
Accepting that children are ready to learn about themselves will decrease the amount of misinformation spread to them by their peers and allow them to receive accurate information from individuals educated on the topic.