aetonormativity
aetonormativity noun: 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.
Noun
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?
- 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.2009, Maria Nikolajeva, Power, Voice and Subjectivity in Literature for Young Readers
Origin of aetonormativity
Coined in 2009 by Maria Nikolajeva, from Latin aetas (“age”) + normativity.
Questions about aetonormativity
- What does aetonormativity mean?
- Aetonormativity means 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.
- What part of speech is aetonormativity?
- Aetonormativity is a noun.
Words near aetonormativity in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: aetonormativity (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “aetonormativity.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/aetonormativity. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.