ABSTRACT
Ageism, discrimination on the basis of chronological age, is a deep seated social phenomenon in British culture and specifically, of the workplace (Lyon and Pollard, 1997, p. 245).
The origins of this chapter can be found in a conference paper which focused upon ageism as experienced by young female academics (Gadd, 1996). Since then, the paper has been expanded to include the experiences of young male academics. The data included are anecdotal, and have been collected via informal conversations with 20 young academics (seven males and 13 females) aged between 27 and 36 years. ‘Young’ is how the respondents were defined by their colleagues in their respective departments. Respondents were based in different geographical locations and came from a number of different academic disciplines (psychology, nursing, business/management, sociology and economics). It is recognised that the small sample who agreed to share their experiences of ageism are by no means representative of academia or other work environments, and that the data drawn upon are subjective. Indeed, collecting any objective data about discrimination on the grounds of age has been described as being ‘hard to come by’ (Walker and Maltby, 1997). Nevertheless, this does not negate the validity of the issues that are raised; instead it can be suggested that the need for systematic research into this area of ageism is highlighted. Indeed, many of those who offered their experiences of ageism for the purposes of this chapter mentioned that they were startled to discover the negative attitudes directed towards them because of their age.
