The Psychological Adjustment of Transracial Adoptees

The Psychological Adjustment of Transracial Adoptees PDF Author: Amanda L. Baden
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ethnicity
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description

The Psychological Adjustment of Transracial Adoptees

The Psychological Adjustment of Transracial Adoptees PDF Author: Amanda L. Baden
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ethnicity
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description


Adoptees' Ethnic Identity Within Family and Social Contexts

Adoptees' Ethnic Identity Within Family and Social Contexts PDF Author: Ellen E. Pinderhughes
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119216613
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
This special issue addresses the construction of ethnic identity among international transracial adoptees, which typically involve the placement of Black, Asian, Hispanic, or Multiracial children with White parents. International transracial adoptees, similar to immigrants, navigate a cultural and ethnic context other than their birth culture. However, they are unique in that they navigate these experiences within families who don’t share their cultural, ethnic, and racial background. Critical questions emerge about the construction and development of their ethnic identity. These questions include the role that transracial adoptive parents play in providing cultural socialization (exposure to children’s birth culture); the impact of culture camps designed to provide cultural socialization in the context of peers; the intersection of adoptive identity and ethnic identity and youth adjustment; whether relations between ethnic identity and adjustment are linear or curvilinear; the role of bicultural identity integration as a link between ethnic identity and pscyhosocial adjustment; and ethnic identity processes among internationally transracially adopted young adults who mentor younger adoptees from similar cultures. These questions are addressed in this special issue in a collection of studies that examine ethnic identity among diverse international transracial adoptees, at different ages, adopted into two countries and using differing sample sizes and methodologies. International transracial adoptive families represent a microcosm of the growing international, transracial, and transethnic social transactions taking place in this diverse world. The collective findings in this special issue about the multidimensionality of ethnic identity and its intersectionality with other identities across developmental eras not only enhance knowledge about identity development among international transracial adoptees, but also expand understanding about identity development in general. This is the 150th volume in this Jossey-Bass series New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development. Its mission is to provide scientific and scholarly presentations on cutting edge issues and concepts in this subject area. Each volume focuses on a specific new direction or research topic and is edited by experts from that field.

The Transracial Adoption Parenting Guide

The Transracial Adoption Parenting Guide PDF Author: Latoria S. Fleming
Publisher: Latoria Fleming
ISBN: 1468153943
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 72

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Book Description
The Transracial Adoption Parenting Guide is a comprehensive guide for transracial adoptive parents on promoting healthy cultural identity development in their adoptive children. In this book you will discover techniques and strategies in setting the right tone and atmosphere for successful parenting. This guide will also provide you with a wealth of information regarding everything from the history of transracial adoption to the 7 adoptee stages of development, including what parents can expect at every age!

International and Transracial Adoptees

International and Transracial Adoptees PDF Author: Marijae Hsiao-ling Nguyen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adoptees
Languages : en
Pages : 82

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Book Description
International adoption in the U.S. remains a viable option for families who wish to build or expand their families; however, it has not been without controversy. Past research has sought to understand the initial and long-term psychological adjustment and racial/ethnic identity development of international and transracial adoptees. Research shows that pre-adoption adversity may be linked to the development of behavior and emotional problems, and opponents assert that international adoption strips children of their culture. Emerging research has focused on cultural socialization practices and how international and transracial adoptive families acknowledge or reject ethnic and racial differences within the family. An area less understood is how international and transracial adoptees cope with racism, prejudice, racial discrimination, and stereotyping. This study explores, using qualitative methods, the ways in which international and transracial adoptees experience and cope with racism, prejudice, racial discrimination and/or stereotyping. The personal stories of ten adult Korean adoptees are highlighted with particular attention to how interactions with adoptive family members and peers influence adoptees identity development, how adoptees resolve conflicts in terms of zfitting in,y and how parental/familial influence mitigates the effects of racism and racial discrimination. The study concludes with a discussion on implications for social work practice.

The Psychological Resilience of Transracial Korean American Adoptees

The Psychological Resilience of Transracial Korean American Adoptees PDF Author: Diane Sookyoung Lee
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
With approximately half a million children being adopted internationally, the U.S. is currently the top receiving country for international adoptions (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011). The historical and continued role that the U.S. has played in providing homes for thousands of parentless children has established the importance of research scholarship that examines the effects of transracial adoption on child outcomes. In particular, there is a scarcity of research that investigates the psychological well-being of transracial adoptees and how specific family practices might better support them. In this study, I use a resilience framework to examine the psychological resilience of transracially adopted youths, or their ability to display a pattern of positive psychological adaptation in the context of adversity or risk (Masten & Obradovic, 2006). The proposed study used a mixed methods approach to examine the family practices that are fundamental for fostering resilience among orphaned-adopted youths. Participants were N=34 transracially adopted Korean American youths (TAKAs) living with White American parents in the U.S.; most were adopted into families within a few months of age. Korean heritage students living with their biological parents with differing degrees of acculturation to American culture--50 Korean Americans (KAs) and 50 South Koreans (SKs)--served as control groups. These comparisons enabled a better and more nuanced understanding of the uniqueness of the transracial adoptee experience and captured the distinctive narratives that characterized each group's experience. In accordance with the resilience framework, three different components were analyzed--their adversity (stress and life change), their protective factors (family practices), and their developmental outcome (psychological well-being). In navigating life challenges, all 3 groups felt that current issues related to their school academics/peers and future education/job were their greatest concerns, especially for SKs who had the highest levels of stress. But TAKAs and SKs experienced significantly more and higher levels of life change than KAs, with 1 to 2 more life events on average during the past year. The influence of family protective factors (i.e., cohesion, expressiveness, conflict, organization, and control) were examined though mediation analysis. Findings indicated that for TAKAs, family conflict fully mediated the relationship between stress perceptions and flourishing. Similarly, family cohesion partially mediated the relationship between stress perceptions and basic needs satisfaction. Both a sense of family support and togetherness and a family's open expression of anger and conflict, in other words, were critical to understanding how Korean heritage students thrive in the face of adversity. Qualitative results from follow-up interviews suggested that one particular factor that may influence TAKAs' family cohesion and conflict is the issue of navigating ethnic identity development within the family context. Most adoptee informants grew up in predominantly White neighborhoods and did not take ownership over their identity exploration until later in life after their first, extended cultural exposure or when they enrolled in college and came into contact with other multi-ethnic peers. While only three out of nine interviewees indicated that their parents were not huge cultural agents, six believed that either parents actively supported their cultural experiences or that adoptee camps played a significant role in their cultural learning. Still, some adoptees indicated the strong potential that their struggles with their ethnic identity development had to either divide or unite their relationship with their parents. In both the best and worst experiences with parents' cultural socialization, informants described various relational challenges they had to overcome. These included coping with resentment against their parents for not providing sufficient cultural support and their parents not being able to empathize with their feelings of cultural and/or social marginalization, for example. Cultural identity conflict was perceived as a prominent issue that transracial adoptees had to navigate all their lives, and was likened by one interviewee to the process of trying to put together a 1,000 piece puzzle with only 900 pieces. Furthermore, KA and SK interviewees found that their parents often played gendered roles within the family. Some informants felt that while their mothers were more involved with family life, fathers were not a strong presence in their lives, and sometimes were even negative. While half of the KAs referenced "tiger parenting, " contrary to popular stereotypes, none believe that it was a comprehensive picture of their parents' rearing styles. Some SK participants, however, expressed their desires for their parents to support them simply by listening to and trying to understand them. Finally, quantitative results on the TAKAs' psychological well-being demonstrate that they are resilient and have significantly higher levels of flourishing and competence basic needs satisfaction. TAKAs' psychological resilience suggest the importance of protective factors within the family in fostering their flourishing. No significant differences, however, were found in their levels of relational harmony, nor their relational basic needs satisfaction. Study findings have important implications for various stakeholders who seek to cultivate a healthy living environment for society's children in multicultural contexts (i.e., foster children and orphans). In addition to providing a positive family model that fosters psychological resilience, findings implicate the importance of considering family practices like family cohesion and conflict in preparing the large number of White parents who are adopting Asian and other transracial children. Furthermore, results re-establish the importance of parents in their children's ethnic identity development beginning from their early years during their childhood all the way through their later years in adolescence.

Handbook of Adoption

Handbook of Adoption PDF Author: Rafael A. Javier
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1412927501
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 585

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Book Description
'Handbook of Adoption' addresses topics in adoption that reflect the many dimensions of theory, research, development, race adjustment and clinical practice which can affect adoption triad members.

Children's Adjustment to Adoption

Children's Adjustment to Adoption PDF Author: David Brodzinsky
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761905165
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
After an overview of historical and contemporary perspectives, the authors explore various theories that have addressed the issue of psychological risk associated with adoption.

The Psychological Adjustment of Extra-familial Adult Adoptees

The Psychological Adjustment of Extra-familial Adult Adoptees PDF Author: Nancy L. Schaeffer Thompson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adoption
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description


International and Transracial Adoptions

International and Transracial Adoptions PDF Author: Christopher Bagley
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
The text begins with an overview of factors which contribute to adjustment in adoption, including the role problems of adoptive parents, adoptions by step-parents, and neglect and abuse of children prior to adoption. Data from the British national child development study analyzed in this book indicate that adoption is a powerful environmental influence on children who without adoption would be at considerable risk for the development of major behavioural problems, delinquency, and mental illness. Several chapters on inter-country adoption highlight the policy dilemmas in this area, and the slow progress towards comprehensive, international agreements to protect the needs of inter-country adopted children. Two follow-up studies are reported of Chinese and Vietnamese children (now young adults) adopted by British parents in the 1960s and 1970s. The excellent outcomes for these children indicate that despite early trauma and neglect prior to adoption, the mental health of these adoptees is as good as mental health profiles in within-country adoptions.

The Adopted Child

The Adopted Child PDF Author: David Brodzinsky
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009339214
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
This Element overviews recent research on children's adjustment to adoption and its relevance for key questions addressed in developmental science. First, a historical perspective on trends in adoption practice and adoptive family life is offered. Second, research on children's adjustment to adoption is reviewed, including the impact of early adversity on their development, as well as biological and social factors related to their recovery from adversity. Third, factors impacting adoptive identity development are examined, followed by research on open adoption and adoption by sexual minority adults. Fourth, different types of postadoption support and services that facilitate family stability and children's emotional well-being are analyzed. Finally, conclusions are drawn, and recommendations for future research and practice are offered.