The Development of Adoption Law

Abstract

Adoption law in the United States, since its inception in 1851, has reflected changes in society and in child welfare practices. The author reviews its evolution from an issue involving property and inheritance, to a means of helping children and creating the ideal nuclear family, to the current understanding that virtually all children needing permanent homes are “adoptable” and that families can take many forms. She also recounts changes in the perceived “best interests” of all members of the adoption triad over time, and the growing recognition of links between adoption and child welfare policy. Finally, she discusses current controversies including open adoption; rights of birth parents, including unmarried fathers, and the role of culture and race.     

Making a “Real” Family

Abstract

This paper discusses the policy of matching as it has influenced American adoption practice. The word “matching” is shorthand for a set of assumptions built around the principle that when a child is “like” her or his adoptive parents, the adoption will be successful. The policy involves establishing criteria for likeness; traits upon which likeness has been based include, explicitly, race, ethnicity, and religion, and, implicity, class. My article shows how, as race became the primary criterion of likeness, matching linked adoption with broader issues in American culture and politics. Resting on a biological model, racial matching reflects changing views of racial equality and of “multiculturalism.” My paper also asks how the increasingly articulated experiences of adoptive parents, birth parents, and adoptees in the 1980s and 1990s impinge on the implementation of matching by social workers, lawyers, and other experts involved in adoption. In conclusion, I speculate on the future interconnections between racial matching, genetic engineering, and ideologies of “biological destiny” reappearing in American culture.     

“A Family for Every Child”: Discursive Constructions of “Ideal” Adoptive Families in Online Foster Adoption Photolistings That Promote Adoption of Children From Foster Care

ABSTRACT

Despite documented cultural and institutional preferences for biological family ties, approximately 100,000 children await adoption in the U.S. foster care system. Child welfare professionals have the important task of finding these children permanent families, yet little is known about this process or how “ideal” adoptive families are constructed. Thus, this study critically examines photolistings (N = 104) from www.afamilyforeverychild.org. Findings indicate that discursive constructions of “forever family,” based on chosen family structure and familial performance, counter biology-based understandings of family. Practical applications that might open untapped opportunities to connect children with permanent families are discussed.     

Deciding Not to Adopt: The Role of Normative Family Ideologies in Adoption Consideration

ABSTRACT

Americans view adoption favorably, yet few consider adopting or actually adopt a child. Using qualitative data from the representative National Survey of Fertility Barriers, we explored why women who had considered adoption decided not to pursue it as a pathway to parenthood. Our sample includes responses from 1,747 women who considered adoption at some point. Seven themes emerged: prioritization of biology, economic concerns, family building prerequisites, relationship barriers, barriers to adoption, family barriers, and change of heart. Findings highlight that barriers to adoption are not always the primary reasons women opt out of adoption; normative conceptualizations of “family” are also important.     

The Changing Face of Public Adoption Practice

ABSTRACT

A study analyzing the workload of California's public adoption workers revealed how much adoption practice in the public sector has changed in recent years. Using focused discussion groups, this study found that compared to practice of an earlier time, (1) children available for placement come from more problematic families and are more difficult to place; (2) some decisions traditionally with the domain of adoptions are now being made by other social workers; and (3) increased oversight by the judicial system has had several unanticipated consequences, including adoption work taking on a “paralegal” quality and judges making traditional casework decisions.     

Developmental,Familial, and Peer Deterrents to Adoption Placement

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the developmental, familial and peer deterrents that form barriers to adoption placement among teen mothers in a residential facility. An Eriksonian developmental model is used to explore developmental issues of identity, projective identification, and industry among teens. The findings suggest that family “cutoffs” and “re-admissions” also serve as deterrents to adoption placement. Additionally, peer pressure from residents of the facility form barriers to adoption placement. Teen mothers express how they were deterred from adoption placement and constrained into child-rearing as pregnancy resolution strategies. This qualitative study gives family therapy interventions as suggestions to facilitate adoption placement through addressing the constraints teen mothers face.     

Wo'Lakol Kiciyapi

ABSTRACT

This pilot study hypothesized that the ancient traditions of help and healing among traditional Lakota people represent an alternative or complementary model for understanding a distinctive approach to American social work theory and practice which includes “shamanic” or spirit healing as a constituent part of the help and healing process. Thirty-two individuals, Including traditional Lakota elders, educators, leaders, and mental health providers, were interviewed about their views on traditional ideas of help and healing and about social work and social service practices. The findings show that there were distinctive approaches to ensure social health and well-being among pre-reservation Lakota peoples, and that the traditions of help and healing are intimately linked to the “natural law” and to the ceremonial life of the tribe. The findings show a resurgence of traditional healing practices among the Lakota with important implications for Social Work theory and practice.     

In Search of Resiliency in Families

Abstract

This study explores the process of relationship development in marriages that foster personal and relationship growth. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve individuals/six couples in marriages that promote individual and relationship growth. Grounded theory methodology was employed and “Empowering Connections” emerged as the core theme. Empowering connections are characterised by a process of growth captured by the following categories: “Connecting Emotionally,” “Loving Respectfully,” “Expanding One's Self,” and “Experiencing Empowering Connections.” The results of the study contribute to the understanding of marriage and provide insight to premarital couples, people who want to improve their marriage, and to therapists working with couples.     

The Symbolic Crises of Adoption

Abstract

Although adoption is a fairly common means of family building, the public lacks the orientation to express positive adoption symbols, to put a positive “face” on adoption. Adoptive families find their realities and those of others at odds, and the results are reflected in insensitive remarks, questioning motives, and damaged self-esteems. Symbolic crises are the result of changing adoption patterns and motives; language transformations that create tension; and media misrepresentations. This paper articulates the dimensions of the symbolic crises faced by adoptive families and adoption advocates created by media agenda setting.     

Knowing what is good for you: Empirical analysis of personal preferences and the “objective good”

This paper aims to test empirically if certain frequently used measures of well-being, which are regarded as valuable properties of human life, are actually desired by people. In other words, it investigates whether the “expert judgments” in social science overlap with social consensus on what the “good life” is. The starting hypothesis is that there is an overlap between these two in the case of basic needs. For the analysis, individuals’ self-reported life satisfaction is used as a proxy for “utility”, based on survey data, which includes about 30,000 individuals from 21 different European countries. The results indicate that the commonly used measures of well-being – labour market situation, health, housing conditions and social relations – significantly influence people's satisfaction, ceteris paribus. Next, the stability of preferences is tested using Hungarian data from the 1990s. The results indicate that there was only very limited change in the relationship between life satisfaction and basic measures of well-being despite the landslide of societal and economic transformation.     

Frantz Fanon,poet: pleasure of the text,power of the text

ABSTRACT

Frantz Fanon’s writing represents a productive embrace of the political and the poetic. His ideas have had such a long afterlife, they live on in us, I submit, precisely because the language of their articulation, image-filled and rhythmic, is compelling. This article examines three elements of Fanonian poetics in Black Skin, White Masks: the use of metaphor and, in “By Way of Conclusion,” an ambiguous/multiple “I” as persona, and, finally, what Brent Edwards has called “anaphoric poetics,” the repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of successive phrases.     

Waterpipe Smoking Among College Students in the United States: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

Objective: To review the literature on college student waterpipe use with a focus on undergraduates in the United States. Participants: Undergraduate students. Methods: Studies were accessed using the databases PubMed, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Academic Search Premier. Searches included combinations of the following keywords: “waterpipe,” “hookah,” “shisha,” “nargila,” “argileh,” “hubble bubble,” “college,” “university,” and “student.” Results: Results demonstrate that approximately 1 in 5 American college students report past-year waterpipe use. Results also suggest that there are a number of established correlates of waterpipe smoking, including male gender, Arab ethnicity, cigarette smoking, and the belief that waterpipe smoking is less harmful than cigarette smoking. Conclusions: Despite its harmful health effects, waterpipe smoking is quite common among college students. Future research with better methodologies and theoretical frameworks are needed to advance the field.     

Infant-Mother Attachment in Separated and Married Families

Abstract

Two contrasting predictions about the effects of parental marital separation on infants' attachment to their mothers are considered. The “early adversity” hypothesis suggests that infants will be adversely affected by negative life events and thus will develop anxious attachments to their mothers. The “protective” hypothesis claims that infants are resistant to stressors because of their limited cognitive ability, and therefore will be no more likely to develop anxious attachments than other infants. Results from 76 mother-child pairs in the “strange situation” procedure (assessing infantmother attachment) supported the “protective” hypothesis in that there were no significant differences between infants in two marital status groups. The role of marital status versus unfavorable life events in affecting children's development was discussed.     

Site-Writing: She is Walking about in a Town Which She does not Know

ABSTRACT

Recently my writing has explored the position of the author, not only in relation to theoretical ideas, art objects, and architectural spaces but also to the site of writing itself. This interest has evolved into a project of “site-writing” that aims to spatialize criticism. “Site-writing” occurs when discussions concerning site specificity extend to involve art criticism, and the spatial qualities of writing and reading become as important in conveying meaning as the content of the criticism. This article suggests that this kind of criticism or critical spatial writing, in operating as mode of a practice in its own right, questions the terms of reference that relate the critic to the work positioned “under” critique. This is an active writing that constructs as well as traces the sites of relation between critic and work. Outlining the conceptual concerns that frame my project of “site-writing” with particular reference to current debates in art criticism, this article then draws on psychoanalytic theory to think through relationships between the spatial politics of internal psychical figures and external cultural geographies, drawing in particular on the work of psychoanalytic practitioners and theorists Jessica Benjamin and Jean Laplanche. Then, in “She is Walking about in a Town Which She Does Not Know,” this article demonstrates the practice of “site-writing” through an essay located on threshold spaces both real and fictional, exterior and interior which link and separate the critic from the work of the eight women artists included in Elles sont passées par ici, Loguivy de la Mer, Brittany, France, 2005.     

Grief Resolution of Birthmothers in Confidential,Time-Limited Mediated,Ongoing Mediated,and Fully Disclosed Adoptions

Abstract

This study examines grief resolution issues for 75 birthmothers who placed infants for adoption four to twelve years ago in confidential, time-limited mediated, ongoing mediated, or fully disclosed adoptions. Interview data from sets of birthmothers and adoptive families were analyzed. Birthmothers in each of the four adoption arrangements exhibited the continuum of grief resolution, from “very poor” to nearly “very good” resolution. However, birthmothers in fully disclosed adoptions had significantly better grief resolution than those with confidential and time-limited mediated adoptions, and those in ongoing mediated had better grief resolution than those with time-limited mediated adoptions. Implications of these findings for pre-placement planning as well as pre- and post-adoption services are discussed.     

Reparative Therapy for Gays and Lesbians

Abstract

In recent years there has been much public controversy about “conversion or reparative therapies” designed to change homosexuals into heterosexuals. Various national mental health associations have taken a stand against these therapies. Social service professionals who work with gay and lesbian clients need to develop beliefs about the mutability of sexual orientation that reflect sound research findings.     

Introduction

ABSTRACT

Conceptualizations of mental health and mental illness continue to be an important influence in shaping social work practice and education. By critically analyzing the emergence of the current concepts of “brain disease” and “behavioral health,” we are able to better understand the stakeholders in this renaming process. The inherent assumptions and the sociopolitical aspects of these two concepts are analyzed. Recommendations for social work practitioners and educators in preparing for a future in which they will participate more fully in the professional dialog about changes in the vocabulary of mental illness and thus more meaningfully shape the service delivery system in general, and the social work domain, in particular, are offered.     

A “shift in attitude”? Institutional change and sexual and gender-based crimes at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

ABSTRACT

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) has been slow to address sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) crimes perpetrated during the Democratic Kampuchea regime. However, there appears to have been a tentative “shift in attitude” at the ECCC toward the investigation and prosecution of these crimes. This article draws on feminist institutionalist theories, first to explain the ECCC’s initial failure to prioritize SGBV and then to explain how and why this may have changed. The article suggests that such change has not arisen from the ECCC’s formal rules. Instead, various actors working with and around these “old rules” have drawn on these provisions, civil society initiatives and international and national gender norms to modify “informal” practices concerning the prosecution of SGBV at the ECCC. Sensitivity to SGBV is particularly important in hybrid, or internationalized, international criminal structures, which may be hindered by prohibitive practices emerging from both the international and national components of the institution.