ABOUT US
The Childism Institute is an international and interdisciplinary project that investigates childism across theory, research, and practice. It tests and critiques the notion of childism both in itself and in relation to other -isms like feminism, antiracism, and posthumanism. It develops academic colloquia, workshops, conferences, speakers, and collaborative publications, special issues of journals, edited volumes, and books. And it generates public-facing blogs, opinion pieces, policy papers, legal collaborations, and consultations for local, national, and international organizations. These cross-currents of theory development, scholarly investigation, and practical engagement enrich one another to advance the critical understanding and practice of childism over time.
We have three current sites, each working semi-independently: Childism Institute at Rutgers University, US (this site); Childism Institute at University of Stavanger, Norway; and Childism Institute at Roskilde University, Denmark. These are coordinated by, respectively, John Wall, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Religion; Tanu Biswas, Associate Professor in Pedagogy, and Hanne Warming, Professor of Sociology.
WHAT IS CHILDISM?
Childism is like feminism but for children. It has emerged in the academic literature as a term to describe efforts to empower the lived experiences of the third of humanity who are children through the radical systemic critique of scholarly, social, and political structures and norms.
Beyond including children and young people as active social participants, childism challenges and transforms the historically ingrained adult-centered assumptions that underlie children’s systemic marginalization in the first place. It functions analogously to terms like feminism, antiracism, womanism, postgenderism, postcolonialism, decolonialism, environmentalism, and transhumanism. As such, it provides a needed critical lens for deconstructing adultism and patriarchy and reconstructing age-inclusive research and societies.
OUR STORY
Founded by John Wall with an initial grant from Rutgers University in 2019, the Childism Institute grew out of discussions among childhood studies scholars at Rutgers University, Roskilde University, and Linköping University who wished to develop new approaches to critiquing adultist normative structures. In different ways, we felt there are limits to the idea of empowering children and children's experiences simply by understanding and encouraging their agency, voices, and participation. A similar shift seemed to be needed to that from second- to third-wave feminism: that is, from recognizing children's equality to adults to also questioning the underlying structural assumptions that define and structure equality in the first place.
An Advisory Board was created in 2020 and a strategic plan developed to focus on three areas: 1. childism theory (the big idea, how it can be developed, and how it needs to be critiqued and evolved); 2. childism research (interdisciplinary social scientific and humanistic studies); and 3. childism practice (finding ways to inspire collective reimaginings of politics, economics, education, families, communities, law, business, and power relations).
For its first three years, the Childism Institute's major endeavor was its tri-annual Transnational Childism Colloquium (TCC), an online discussion that brought together childism scholars and activists. As can be seen on our Events page, the TCC has explored a wide range of issues in childism theory and research, childism in relation to other -isms, and childism in practice. The 9 TCCs that took place from 2020 to 2023 involved a total of 67 speakers and an average of 71 participants per event from over 40 countries.
During this period, the Childism Institute also conducted book talks and mini-conferences and published numerous podcasts, blogs, and media. It developed active listserv, facebook, and X/twitter sites (to join or post, see below). And it collaborated on the publication of numerous scholarly articles, including a special issue on "Childism" in the journal Children & Society. We have also conducted online workshops and book discussions and undertaken a variety of consultations, presentations, types of activism, blogs, and other media.
Starting in 2023, the Childism Institute reorganized into a research and activism program Co-Directed by Tanu Biswas, John Wall, and Hanne Warming and co-hosted at The Childism Institute at University of Stavenger (Norway), The Childism Institute at Rutgers University (United States), and The Childism Institute at Roskilde University (Denmark). This tripartite hosting is designed to facilitate a new phase of work that focuses on more specific collaborations with other programs and individuals through a variety of workshops, publications, consultations with child and youth organizations, and the like.
If you are interested in collaborating with us, please email us at the address below.