aetonormativity
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Coined in 2009 by Maria Nikolajeva, from Latin aetas (“age”) + normativity.
Noun[edit]
aetonormativity (uncountable)
- Any assumption of an age-based norm and particularly the assumption that adults and adult experiences are normative while children and childish experiences are consequently deviant or other.
- Could one consequence of aetonormativity be that most picture books are written by adults, despite their target audience being children?
- 2009, Maria Nikolajeva, Power, Voice and Subjectivity in Literature for Young Readers:
- On analogy with the central concept of queer theory, heteronormativity, I propose the concept of aetonormativity (Lat. aeto-, pertaining to age), adult normativity that governs the way children's literature has been patterned from its emergence until the present day.
- 2013, Clémentine Beauvais, “'The Problem of 'Power': Metacritical Implications of Aetonormativity for Children's Literature Research”, in Children's Literature in Education, volume 44, number 1, , page 78:
- And, relatedly, exploring aetonormativity in children's literature as the normativisation of only some carefully identified adult "powers" could lead to a more complex model of the normalising/othering binary developed in the literature.