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.     

Identity Development in an International Transracial Adoptive Family: A 5-Year Case Study

Our case study focused on the adoptive identity development of two female Chinese adoptees over the course of five years (from when they were 7 and 9 until they were 12 and 14 years old, respectively). The study investigated the adoptive parent’s and family identities through six interviews with the adoptive mother, adoptees’ behavioral adjustment reported by the mother, two unstructured observations, and exploration of adoptees’ narratives. The study was guided by a narrative-based framework situated with the cultural socialization approach. Results highlight four central themes: 1) becoming Chinese-Americans; 2) meaning related to adoption is both spoken and unspoken; 3) a we-ness identity, and 4) social-cultural contexts of identity work. Findings demonstrate the incorporation of adoption and the adoptees’ race and culture into the adoptive parent’s and family identities. Findings further illuminate that one’s identity is developed within personal, familial, and social-cultural contexts.     

国际格局变化中的中东局势

由于世界格局发生重大变化,奥巴马政府外交政策出现了调整.美国中东政策调整幅度最大,但只是策略和手法的变化,而非战略性改变.美国宣示的调整后的中东政策不可能如实执行.随着美国力衰减,美主导中东事务的能力减弱.大中东热点问题如巴以冲突、阿富汗战争,伊拉克战争和伊朗核问题都出现了一些新的变化,但这些问题矛盾复杂,涉及面广,仍难以解决.     

国际格局变化中的中东局势

由于世界格局发生重大变化,奥巴马政府外交政策出现了调整。美国中东政策调整幅度最大,但只是策略和手法的变化,而非战略性改变。美国宣示的调整后的中东政策不可能如实执行。随着美国力衰减,美主导中东事务的能力减弱。大中东热点问题如巴以冲突、阿富汗战争、伊拉克战争和伊朗核问题都出现了一些新的变化,但这些问题矛盾复杂,涉及面广,仍难以解决。     

Not Ethnic Enough: The Cultural Identity Imperative in International Adoptions from China to Canada

Based on a qualitative research of adoptions from China to Canada, this article analyses changing attitudes and approaches to racial and ethnic differences in adoptive kinship in the last few decades. I argue that culture celebration labour over children adopted from China is shaped by the contemporary Canadian culturalist ethos, the Orientalist imagination, and the Asian model minority stereotype. The cultural identity imperative, a core component of multicultural governmentality, perceives culture as an object, demands non‐white Canadian subjects with rooted belongings, and operates in ways that sanctions and incorporates, as it depoliticises and subordinates.     

Different Transitions: Timetable Failures in the Transition to School

The aim of this article was to show how transitions are constructed, and to discuss different ways of making the transition from the preschool class to first grade. The analysis is grounded in ethnographic fieldwork. Temporality is used to understand expectations about how transition should be made. The results reveal that some children made their transitions in ways that did not follow the expected timetable. These transitions can be understood as timetable failures, and needed to be made sense of by both children and teachers. These different transitions were an important part of the overall construction of transition.     

Subjective sexual arousal and involvement: Development of multiple indicators

Three measures of subjective sexual arousal were observed across four erotic conditions in a sample of 241 college men and women (a) to refine two multi‐item scales of subjective sexual arousal, (b) to determine the convergent and discriminant validity of three measures of sexual arousal, and (c) to relate these operational definitions of subjective sexual arousal to the construct of subjective sexual arousal within Mosher's (1980) involvement theory. From the perspective of involvement theory, subjective sexual arousal is conceived to be an affect‐cognition blend, consisting of awareness of physiological sexual arousal, sexual affects, and affect‐cognition blends, which is transmuted into consciousness and deepens involvement by amplifying the perception of sexual stimulation, sexual cognitions, sexual behavior, physiological sexual response, and itself. Evidence of convergent validity was strong with a median validity coefficient of .51 for the three measures across the four conditions.     

A Sense of Place: The Politics of Immigration and the Symbolic Construction of Identity in Southern California and the New York Metropolitan Area

American immigration has long been characterized by spatial concentration within major urban areas. Los Angeles and New York City are two of the most important immigrant meccas today. Recent studies of immigrant adaptation within these cities have emphasized material factors at the expense of cultural considerations. This paper adopts a comparative perspective to demonstrate extreme differences in the symbolic construction of identity vis-a-vis immigrants in these two urban areas. Using The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times as indicators of elite cultural orientations, a content analysis is performed. The results demonstrate the social construction of an exclusive threat narrative in Southern California, and an inclusive immigrant as victim narrative in the New York metropolitan area. I argue that this extreme variation in cultural orientations must be understood as the result of divergent material and symbolic contexts. In order to demonstrate the importance of cultural factors, this paper focuses on symbolic differences between these areas and the influence these differences have on the political process of inclusion/exclusion.     

International Adoptee Identity and Community: Emerging Lessons Learned from Adoptee Experts

Abstract

With tens of thousands of international adoptees placed in the United States since the 1950s, several critiques of the current structure of international adoption have begun to emerge. These critiques highlight the challenges many adoptees face around issues of identity and community. Their stories have also given us insight into oppressions that have prevented their voices from being heard in a more significant way. Community-based participatory research over 7 years of postadoption service work has given the author valuable insights into the current state of international adoption, the challenges faced by adoptees, and what can be done to improve conditions for current and future adoptees. This conceptual article synthesizes the opinions of adoptees into an analysis of the challenges they face and offers possible solutions to move forward. The concepts in this article can be used as groundwork for further discussion around the needs of the adoptee and how they can be addressed by the adoption industry. Specifically, the article calls for the emergence of adoptee identity and community as a valid response to the oppression experienced by many international adoptees.     

Contested Notions of Issue Identity in International Public Relations: A Case Study

The Open University's circuit of culture model, which comprises a melding of critical or cultural and postmodern perspectives, encompasses 5 central discursive moments: regulation, production, consumption, representation, and identity. Using the World Health Organization's smallpox eradication campaign as a case study, we gathered data from a wide variety and in-depth collection of materials to examine how the moment of identity informs our understanding of international public relations practice and theory by recasting identity as a central, discursive concept within public relations.     

转型期青年成才的主观矛盾和障碍

社会转型期的各种社会关系处于不断调整的状态,因而社会不可能在短时期内提供一套社会心理调节适应机制和相应的衔接文化,处于这一历史时期的青年更容易产生各种心理困惑和心理问题.本文主要论述了青年在转型期成才的主观矛盾和障碍.     

Identity Development in a Multicultural Context: risks and educational opportunities

On the basis of a case study carried out among young people of Italian origin in Siidbaden (Germany) and Southern Italy, this article will consider the issue of migration: an opportunity or a risk factor for the positive development of personality. After discussing favourable and unfavourable factors which might have positive or negative consequences on the young migrants’ personality development in a multicultural situation, some educational consequences will be highlighted. The object of this paper is to further stimulate the discussion on the methods of intercultural education.     

Overcoming Ethnocentrism: The Role of Identity in Contingent Practice of International Public Relations

Based on literature from the contingency theory of public relations and psychocultural conflict theory, this study explored how multinational corporations (MNCs) are practicing public relations in Korea, and what contingency factors impact MNCs' stances in conflict situations. Interviews of leaders in public relations agencies whose major clients are MNCs found that "fear factor" plays a critical role in MNCs taking more accommodative stances in conflict situations. MNCs tend to move toward accommodative stances based on their fear of Korean media and local culture, regardless of the presence of 2-way symmetrical communications with publics. More specifically, accommodation seemed to be enacted through 1-way communication (i.e., local publics' claims) and MNCs' fear of media, local culture, or publics. This finding implies the following: First, 1-way communication may not always result in advocacy as is claimed in Western cultures, but may actually lead to accommodation. Second, indigenous local cultural dimensions should be explored in examining international public relations practices.     

Subcultural Identity Work in Social Movements: Barriers to Collective Identity Changes and Overcoming Them

Over time, social movements must contend with a vast array of forces that can lead to changes in the movement's collective identity. As such changes may impact the alignment of movements and their membership, this study explores how changes are perceived by members and how they are interactively addressed. Drawing on ethnographic data gathered from two Native American social movement organizations, this study specifically asks why some changes suggested by movement members might be pursued and others are not. While movement members felt that there were a number of barriers to changes in their movements, the study revealed that it was the resonance of collective memories – presented during interactions as narrative commemorations – that encouraged the pursuit of suggested changes or the maintenance of a status quo.