Many Faces of Openness in Adoption: Perspectives of Adopted Adolescents and Their Parents

Parents and adolescents (mean age, 15.7 years) from 177 adoptive families participating in the second wave of the Minnesota/Texas Adoption Research Project were interviewed about their post-adoption contact arrangements. The sample included families with no contact, stopped contact, contact without meetings, and contact with face-to-face meetings between the adolescent and birth mother. Openness arrangements were dynamic, and different openness arrangements were associated with different experiences and feelings. Adoptive families with contact reported having higher levels of satisfaction about their openness arrangements, experiencing more positive feelings about the birth mother, and possessing more factual and personal knowledge about the birth mother than did families without contact. Adolescents and adoptive mothers in the contact with meetings group reported the greatest satisfaction with their openness arrangements; those with no contact or stopped contact reported the least satisfaction with their arrangements. Participants having no contact were more likely to want the intensity of contact to increase in the future rather than stay the same. Many participants already having contact wanted it to increase in the future. Fewer than 1 percent of all participants wanted to see the intensity of contact decrease.     

Communicative Openness Within Adoptive Families: Adoptive Parents' Narrative Accounts of the Challenges of Adoption Talk and the Approaches Used to Manage These Challenges

Policy and practice relating to openness in adoption have changed substantially in the last 30 years. There is a growing body of empirical research that supports both structural and communicative openness, and there is widespread consensus that communicative openness is desirable within adoptive families. Despite this, there is evidence that some adoptive parents and their adopted children struggle to achieve the level of communicative openness to which they aspire. This paper presents data from a small-scale exploratory study of adoptive family life. It draws on the narrative accounts of adoptive mothers and fathers to explore some of the sensitivities of adoption talk, the communication challenges experienced by adoptive parents, and the ways that adopters manage these challenges. Finally, some suggestions are made for practice.     

The Impact of Openness on Adoption Agency Practices

ABSTRACT

This article reports the results of a longitudinal study of the changing openness-related practices of private U.S. adoption agencies. Staff from private adoption agencies were interviewed at three points in time, in 1987–89, 1993, and 1999, about their current practices and attitudes regarding openness in adoption and any changes that may have taken place since the previous interview. From 1993 to 1999 agencies continued a trend toward offering and encouraging more open adoptions. During this period fully disclosed arrangements became more common and had the greatest growth since 1987, while confidential adoptions continued to decrease in frequency. Mediated adoptions remain the predominant arrangements. Changes in the adoption options offered by the agencies at all three time periods have been driven primarily by the demands of the birthmother for greater openness. However, by final data collection in 1999, most agencies in this sample changed from viewing the birthmother as their primary client to viewing the adopted child as their primary client. Implications for agency practices 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.     

找准立足点，抓住着力点，凝聚拉动力，加快推进经济体制转型

针对我国已进入完善市场经济体制攻坚阶段的特点,从找准立足点、抓住着力点、凝聚拉动力三个方面深入论述了我国应该如何推进经济体制转型。详细阐述了推进经济体制转型的立足点是营造活力企业;着力点是正确处理政府与市场的关系;拉动力是“开放、改革、管理”三驾马车。拉动经济体制转型的“三驾马车”是相互联系、相互影响、因果循环的,其重要程度和作用是动态变化的。用好“三驾马车”,重在聚合“开放、改革、管理”的拉动力,并形成强大合力。     

Attitudes towards globalization and cosmopolitanism: cultural diversity, personal consumption and the national economy

One of the widely accepted consequences of globalization is the development of individual outlooks, behaviours and feelings that transcend local and national boundaries. This has encouraged a re-assessment of important assumptions about the nature of community, personal attachment and belonging in the face of unprecedented opportunities for culture, identities and politics to shape, and be shaped by, global events and processes. Recently, the upsurge of interest in the concept of cosmopolitanism has provided a promising new framework for understanding the nexus between cosmopolitan dispositions and global interconnectedness across cultural, political and economic realms. Using data from a representative social survey of Australians this paper investigates the negotiation of belonging under the conditions of globalization. The data tap into attitudes and behaviours associated with a broad gamut of cosmopolitan traits in the domains of culture, consumption, human rights, citizenship, and international governance. They show how cosmopolitan outlooks are shaped by social structural factors, and how forms of identification with humanity and the globe are fractured by boundaries of self and others, threats and opportunities, and the value of things global and local.     

Long-term Growth Perspectives and Economic Convergence of CEE and SEE Countries

The paper first investigates the main drivers of economic growth and real convergence in CEE and SEE Countries. In the theoretical framework provided by the growth-accounting approach, both are shown to be driven by capital accumulation and total factor productivity changes, with the latter making however a major contribution. The nominal convergence path towards the Eurozone is then analysed. Despite considerable results obtained in the last decade, most EU new members are still found to face severe challenges in the process of converging towards Maastricht criteria. The need to reconcile exchange rate stability with inflation convergence is in particular seen to be at the heart of their de facto decision to delay the EMU entry date until a higher degree of real convergence will have been achieved.

女性文学研究大观

从20世纪80年代至今,女性文学研究在广度上有了很大的拓展,三个维度的数据检索充分证明了这一点。同时,女性文学研究也在向纵深发展,其标志主要有三：高层次的科研项目;高素质的研究队伍;高目标的学科建设。女性文学研究的终极目标是＂世界文学＂,所以,开放性是十分重要的,包括研究目的的开放性、研究论题的开放性以及研究队伍的开放性。     

基于上下级关系的沟通开放性对组织承诺的影响研究

对315位中国企业的员工进行测试,探讨沟通开放性对组织承诺的影响以及领导-成员交换和"关系"在此过程中的中介作用,并考察年龄、学历、职位级别等个人特征对各变量的影响。研究结论表明:①组织中沟通开放性对员工组织承诺有正向的影响;②沟通开放性对领导-成员交换和上下级"关系"均有正向的影响;③"关系"在沟通开放性与员工组织承诺的关系中起完全中介作用;④领导-成员交换不直接在沟通开放性与员工组织承诺的关系中起中介作用。在此基础上对中国企业提出有关建议:建立良性的正式沟通网络,保证各种信息能顺利进行传递;上级要对下属更加开放;上级要与下级保持良好的个人"关系",以获得下属的忠诚,以增强员工的组织承诺。     

区域开放与经济增长——基于湖南经济开放度的实证分析

2009年湖南省各市州的对外开放情况横向比较表明,省区内部的开放差异较为明显,导致地区经济增长不平衡、发展受限制。为提高湖南对外开放水平,推动经济均衡发展,要认识到其整体开放度偏低的事实,积极发挥潜力;要积极引进和充分利用国外及沿海发达地区的资本,促进经济快速发展;要根据自身的资源禀赋,以市场为主导手段,加快产业结构调整;要实施"引进来"与"走出去"相结合的战略。