Adultification as epistemic violence

This presentation examines adultification bias as a form of epistemic violence within education and considers how Black and Brown young people are routinely misrecognised through everyday institutional practices. Adultification refers to the tendency to read racialised students as more mature more responsible and more emotionally resilient than their peers. This misrecognition does not result in greater autonomy or trust but instead leads to reduced care heightened surveillance and faster escalation into discipline and exclusion. Drawing on national data on exclusions suspensions continuation rates and degree outcomes alongside anonymised student reflections this presentation traces how adultification begins early in schooling and accumulates across educational stages. It shows how confusion emotional distress and unmet learning needs are repeatedly reinterpreted as disengagement defiance or poor attitude. Over time these interpretations shape how students are positioned within institutions and how responsibility for harm is displaced onto individuals rather than understood as structurally produced. The presentation argues that adultification does not operate in isolation but intersects with race class language neurodiversity and institutional logics of efficiency and control. In higher education these logics are often disguised through expectations of independence professionalism and resilience which can reproduce earlier harms while appearing neutral or meritocratic. The awarding gap and disparities in continuation are therefore not simply outcomes but traces of a longer process of misrecognition that has already shaped who is seen as capable deserving and credible within academic spaces. Finally the presentation positions higher education as a critical site of intervention. While universities can reproduce adultification through assessment safeguarding and behavioural interpretation they also represent one of the last institutional spaces where these patterns can be interrupted. The presentation concludes by outlining practical pedagogical shifts that lecturers can make in everyday teaching assessment and student support to reduce harm and to move towards forms of educational practice grounded in care dignity and epistemic justice rather than suspicion and escalation.