Age Discrimination

by Sue Thompson

This book is one of Russell House Publishing’s Theory into Practice series, aimed at a variety of helping professions, and it is designed to lay out the theoretical framework about ageism, and then go on to cover implications for practice. The back cover says that it explains how ageism comes about, how it can be avoided and how it can be challenged. It does all these things, and goes through its material simply and straightforwardly.

The reason for including this review in Children Webmag is that, while most people might think of ageism as discrimination against old people, the word in itself is neutral in that it refers to discrimination against anyone on grounds of their age. Indeed, the book makes the point that children and young people may lose out on age grounds at times, and quite a number of the practice examples given in the book refer to children and young people.

The book has a few pages of references and a list of contacts for further work on discrimination against children and young people. For anyone interested in this subject, it is a useful starter.

ISBN 1-903855-59-4, published in 2005