Exploitation of Intercountry Adoption: Toward Common Understanding and Action

The conflation of various illicit intercountry adoption activities under the umbrella of “child trafficking” has caused confusion in the adoption literature. Utilizing a pragmatic approach, this article explores the cacophony of opinions that have arisen with regard to trafficking in illicit adoption activities and identifies the concept of exploitation as a useful framework for differentiating among them. To improve and increase the accuracy of research, policy, and programming, the authors suggest the new labels child trafficking, the sale of children, birth mother trafficking, and abuse of process for use in identifying and discussing different forms illicit adoption.     

Causal Modeling Predicting Psychological Adjustment of Korean-Born Adolescent Adoptees

Summary

Self-concept theory and ethnic identity theory imply causal relations among positive parent-child relationship, ethnic pride, and psychological adjustment of children who were intercountry adopted. This study used linear measurement and structural equation models to test the plausibility of the causal model dealing with the relations among indexes of parent's support of ethnic background, positive parent-child relationship, collective self-esteem, and psychological adjustment in a sample of 241 Korean-born adolescent adoptees. Consistent with the expectations of the self-concept theory and the ethnic identity development theory, the findings show that a more positive parent-child relationship, in which the parents support their children's ethnic identity development and share ethnic socialization experiences, predicts better psychological adjustment of the adopted children. Policy and practice implications of the findings are discussed.     

Communicative Openness in Adoption,Knowledge of Culture of Origin,and Adoption Identity in Adolescents Adopted From Romania

Eighty adolescents (39 male, mean age = 15.74 years) adopted from Romanian institutions in early childhood rated their own and their adoptive parents’ communicative openness, their knowledge of Romanian culture, and positive and negative feelings concerning birth parents, being placed for adoption, and being adopted. Adolescents were moderately comfortable talking about their adoptions but perceived their parents to be very comfortable. Nearly 40% reported no familiarity with Romanian culture. Youth with more familiarity with Romanian culture were more communicatively open and had more positive adoption identities. Greater communicative openness was also associated with more positive adoption identities. Gender and age at adoption differences are reported.     

Exploring Birth Countries: The Mental Health Implications of Heritage Travel for Children/Adolescents Adopted Internationally

Heritage trips are increasingly recognized as beneficial for children adopted internationally for myriad reasons. For example, a large percentage of adults adopted transracially during childhood report birth country travel to be a critical aspect to their ultimate development of positive racial identity. Although generally perceived to be a helpful experience for youth and families, heritage travel is not always without psychological distress. This article describes the theoretical basis for heritage travel, reviews the emerging literature on the mental health impact of heritage trips, and provides anecdotal vignettes to highlight mental health considerations and implications for heritage travel.     

The Changing Environment of Adoption Practice: Focus on Intercountry Adoption to the United States

This article reviews the history of domestic and international adoption, examines international agreements and U.S. statutes that govern intercountry adoption, and assesses the current landscape of adoption agency practice, with major emphasis on the United States. The article focuses specifically on environmental factors that have driven change in both practice and policy concerning international adoption. The theoretical lens of population ecology offers a helpful perspective on the demographic and cultural trends that have transformed adoption and adoption agencies, particularly as they shifted toward international placements beginning in the mid-twentieth century.     

Communicative Openness About Adoption and Interest in Contact in a Sample of Domestic and Intercountry Adolescent Adoptees

Adolescent intercountry (n = 122) and domestic (n = 40) adoptees and their adoptive parents were asked about their views on communicative openness. The adoptees were also asked for their thoughts on birth parents and contact. A modest association between communicative openness and feelings about adoptive status and self-esteem was found. Girls were more interested in many aspects of their adoptions than boys. Compared with the situation at 11 years of age, there was greater parent-child agreement on whether the child had difficulties talking about adoption. Nevertheless, at age 15, children were still nearly twice as likely to report difficulties talking about adoption issues than their adoptive parents realized. At the age of 15, the majority of the adoptees expressed a desire for contact with birth relatives, but this was a reduction from the numbers at age 11. They also reported finding it easier to talk about adoption issues than they did at the age of 11. The implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Constructing border ethnic identities along the frontier of Central and Eastern Europe

The analysis is based on an empirical sociological study (interplay of European, National and Regional Identities: nations between states along the new eastern borders of the European Union Project) aimed at exploring the various aspects of people’s diaspora affiliations and their ethnic and national identity on the Eastern borderland of Europe. We surveyed ethnic minority groups in eight countries along the frontier of Central Eastern Europe. With the ethnic minorities having a similar ethnic status along the border, we demonstrated how ethnic minorities ‘deal’ with their minority status in their ‘host’ country. The analysis reconstructs the image of the ethnic minority at the societal level. We model personal and collective ethnic identities as a stock of knowledge based on cognitive and affective components, and test them along the different ethnic dyads. The paper shows how successive generations are able to transfer the pattern of ethnic identity within the family, and also how language use practices and personal networks play a role in preserving personal ethnic identity.     

Civic,ethnic, hybrid and atomised identities in Central and Eastern Europe

While the topic of identity of ethnic minorities abounds in theoretical insights, most discussion is still clustered around the civic–ethnic divide while assuming conclusions with limited empirical evidence. By contrast, this article uses a four-category typology of identity that considers both in-group and out-group attachments to address hypotheses about competing identities and about factors influencing minorities to adopt one identity type over others. Based on unique data evidence of 12 ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe, this study concludes that the ‘hybrid’ identity, rather than the literature-assumed ‘ethnic’ identity, tops the identification preference of minorities, although there are differences in levels and patterns when controlling for various covariates. The choice of identity depends on the socialisation process, the economic status, the perceived discrimination and intergroup tensions, reflecting variations in the system of values common to a region with complex ethnic dynamics.     

Identity Concerns in Intercountry Adoption-Immigrants as Adoptive Parents

The psycho-social sense of identity, which is an important component of the sense of self, emerges during childhood and adolescence but is a lifelong process. In intercountry adopted children, additional layers are added to the initial difference of being adopted—in outward appearance and in cultural heritage—that do not match those of the adoptive parents. These may interfere with empathic bonding and with the integration of facets of identity into a meaningful narrative. The article addresses a particular subgroup of adoptive parents—those who have immigrated to Israel in their recent or remote past. Using the framework of self psychology, it suggests ways of helping immigrant adoptive parents to create an empathic affect-bridge with their children, who immigrate to a new family as well as to a new country, by tapping their own experiences as immigrants.     

Interventions for Internationally Adopted Children and Families: A Review of the Literature

Internationally adopted (IA) children are at increased risk for health-related, developmental, and behavioral difficulties. This article reviews the literature on various interventions currently used with IA populations; including health-related interventions provided by medical specialists, preparation programs provided by adoption agencies and other social service organizations, treatments for attachment and behavioral disorders, psychoeducational services, programs designed to improve children’s care prior to adoption, and parent-based initiatives. Surprisingly, very little systematic information exists regarding the effectiveness of interventions designed to prevent and remediate these difficulties in IA children. Recommendations for future research activity and for best practice approaches to intervention are discussed.     

Transnational Adoption Challenges: Through the Eyes of Eastern European Youth

Between 1990 and the early 2000s, thousands of children were adopted into families in the United States from Eastern Europe. While most adoptions are successful, some children have difficulties. This qualitative study of 26 youth between the ages of 12 and 21 who were sent by their parents to an educational alternative setting or left their adoptive home prior to completing high school were interviewed regarding their experiences of adoption. The study found that the youth were appreciative of their adoptive parents, but saw the world through a different lens due to their lived experiences. Conclusions may assist prospective adoptive parents and professionals.     

Influence of Age on Transracial Foster Adoptions and Its Relation to Ethnic Identity Development

In the United States, ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented in the foster care system and underrepresented among potential adoptive parents. The need to find permanent homes for foster children has led to an increase in the controversial practice of transracial adoption (TRA), wherein ethnic minority children are placed in adoptive homes with Caucasian parents. While many child welfare scholars and dependency stakeholders support TRA as a positive alternative to foster care, others are concerned that such adoptions may inhibit the ethnic identity development of transracially adopted children. This article documents the large number of ethnic minority children who are adopted through TRA prior to the onset of ethnic identification and how age influences which children are adopted out of foster care. The findings indicate that young ethnic minorities are significantly more likely to be adopted through TRA compared to older children, an effect especially prominent among African Americans. Implications for the child welfare system are discussed.     

Muslim Marriages: Intergenerational Differences in the Notions of Marriage among the Bulgarian Pomaks

Abstract

Based on ethnographic data, this study investigates the changes in the notions of marriage within three generations in a Muslim Pomak community in Bulgaria. The main goal of the study is to revisit the concepts of the detraditionalization and retraditionalization of marriage, taking into account the communist past and the repressions against Muslims in Bulgaria known as the “Rebirth process” or the “Revival process”. After 1989 the notions of marriage have been reconsidered by the youngest cohort under the influence of globalizing processes and the interactions with the Christian Bulgarians in bigger cities. The analyses pay particular attention to the intergenerational conflict over the role of the woman in the marriage, the emerging individualism among the women from the youngest generation, and their fears from re-traditionalization of their future marriages.     

Formation of European identity: ethnic minority groups in Central and Eastern Europe in generational perspective

Research into European identity has mostly focused on majority populations in Western European countries, neglecting new member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) as well as ethnic minority groups. This paper contributes to filling this gap by exploring and investigating processes of European identity formation of five ethnic minority groups in four CEE countries. A generational perspective was applied by conducting qualitative in-depth interviews with three generations of ethnic minority group members. The results support the instrumental approach of identity construction. In all minority groups researched, the young generation, due to more positive personal experiences and perceived benefits from the European Union, have developed more positive images and perceptions of Europe and a greater sense of European identity than older generations. Furthermore, ethnic group-specific processes of identity formation were found.     

White Mothers,Brown Children: Ethnic Identification of Maori‐European Children in New Zealand

Studies of multiethnic families often assume the ethnic identification of children with the minority group results from the minority parent. This study examines an alternate view that mainstream parents also play an important role in transmitting minority ethnicity. It explores this argument using data from New Zealand on the ethnic labels mothers assign to their Maori‐European children. It finds that European mothers are just as disposed as Maori mothers to designate their child as Maori, either exclusively or in combination. Two explanations, grounded in ethnic awareness and gendered inheritance, are proposed. Although neither satisfactorily predicts maternal designation decisions, the readiness of European mothers to identify their child as Maori underscores their role in diffusing Maori ethnicity.     

The Psychological Adjustment of Transracial Adoptees: An Application of the Cultural–Racial Identity Model

In response to the need for increased understanding of the identity process of transracial adoptees, the Cultural–Racial Identity Model (A. L. Baden & R. J. Steward, 1995) was developed; however, the model has yet to be empirically validated. The model allows distinctions to be made between racial identity and cultural identity, resulting in 16 proposed identities. Identities are based on the degrees to which individuals (1) have knowledge of, awareness of, competence within, and comfort with their own racial group's culture, their parents' racial group's culture, and multiple cultures, and (2) are comfortable with their racial group membership and with those belonging to their own racial group, their parents' racial group, and multiple racial groups. Four dimensions of the model were determined for study: the Adoptee Culture Dimension, the Parental Culture Dimension, the Adoptee Race Dimension, and the Parental Race Dimension. In this study, the Cultural–Racial Identity of transracial adoptees was assessed by a modified version of the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM; J. S. Phinney, 1992). Psychological adjustment was assessed by the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI; L. R. Derogatis & P. A. Cleary, 1977). The sample consisted of 51 transracial adoptees who completed mail survey questionnaires. The exploratory findings supported the Cultural–Racial Identity Model by demonstrating that the modified version of the MEIM successfully yielded variation in the potential Cultural–Racial Identities that the transracial adoptees reported. Findings also did not yield support for differences in psychological adjustment among transracial adoptees having different Cultural–Racial Identities. The implications that the results have for counseling practice and social policy were discussed.     

Adopted Adolescents' Preoccupation With Adoption: The Impact on Adoptive Family Relationships

This study examines the relationship between the intensity of adopted adolescents' thinking about their adoptions and their adoptive family relationships. Participants included 135 adopted adolescents involved in an ongoing study of openness in adoption. Adolescents who reported high levels of preoccupation with adoption reported greater alienation from their adoptive fathers than did adolescents who reported moderate or low levels of preoccupation. Adolescents with extremely high levels of preoccupation reported significantly higher levels of alienation and significantly lower levels of trust for their adoptive mothers and fathers than adolescents with extremely low levels of preoccupation. These findings, along with the divergences between adolescents' perceptions of dyadic and overall family relationships, are discussed in terms of how they relate to the process of adoptive identity exploration.     

Ethnic Identity as a Protective Factor for Looked After and Adopted Children From Ethnic Minority Groups: A Critical Review of the Literature

The development of a strong ethnic identity has been considered to relate to psychological well-being. The aim of this article is to critically review the literature relating to ethnic identity and positive outcomes in looked after and adopted children from ethnic minority groups. A literature search of SCOPUS, PsycINFO, and Medline databases from 2000 to 2010 was conducted to identify qualifying published studies. Studies that pertained to ethnic identity development in children in relation to positive outcomes, adjustment, self-esteem, and psychological well-being were reviewed. Overall, evidence from the studies was mixed, with strong ethnic identity not always found to be indicative of improved psychological adjustment. Methodological limitations of the reviewed studies are discussed, and clinical implications and recommendations for future research are presented.     

Design,Utility, and History of the Colorado Adoption Project: Examples Involving Adjustment Interactions

This article describes the Colorado Adoption Project (CAP), a longitudinal study in behavioral development, and discusses how adoption studies may be used to assess genetic and environmental etiologies of individual differences for important developmental outcomes. Previous CAP research on adjustment outcomes in childhood and adolescence—which found significant interactions, including gene-environment interactions—is reviewed. New research suggests mediating effects of menarche and religiosity on age at first sex in this predominantly middle-class, Caucasian sample.