International Adoption Research Paper

Others state that “race should be no barrier to finding a child a loving family and adoptive family”. One in five children waiting to be adopted are from an ethnic minority. Last year around 2,300 children were approved for adoption. Of those children 500 of them were either black or asian. Some adopted children state that growing up in a family you weren’t born into was more difficult than they thought. You never knew your ethnic background. It also always raises questions for a child about where they fit in or who they are. It becomes very pointed out if you are visually different from your

While the number of Latino children in foster care continues to increase, there is a shortage of Latino foster care/adoptive parents to take children in when they are placed in the system. Although it is not required that a Latino child be matched with a Latino family, it can be of great benefit for the child to be placed within their racial/ethnic group (Bausch, 1999). Reasons for the lack of available foster/adoptive parents in this community are greatly affected by Latino perceptions of foster care and adoption, cultural beliefs, and organizational barriers (Quintanilla, 2002).

In “Races isn’t what defines me: exploring identities choices in transracial, biracial, and monoracial families”, Butler-Sweet, Colleen explains that there has been a controversial issue in the United Sates for more than half a century, among black children raised in white homes. The author’s main claim is that transracial adoption will miscarry a black identity. Comparing experiences among monoracial, biracial, and transracial families on black identity.

Although this situation can create negative consequences that can be detrimental to the child once reunited with their biological families. Once the child has been reunited they stand the chance of having a sense of not belonging, and not having a clear understanding of the beliefs and culture which they were born into, this can cause annihilation for all family members. Those that experience culture differences has the potential to benefit from a useful learning experience especially when education is put into the living arrangement, education holds the key to success for most. When speaking on personal culture influences those children miss out on what generations have passed on to the next generation, not having the knowledge of the struggles their parents, grandparents, and others have had to endure lessen the ability to understand the family’s animosity towards other cultures. Poverty and homelessness has become a rising factor for children being placed in other cultures in society today, we see white families adopting and fostering African American children, which can be a success story, but when these children are not exposed to their natural heritage they loss out on the link to their

To the thousands of children in foster care, adoption means being part of a family. Adoption signifies a chance to be loved, wanted, and cared for properly. Every year thousands of children enter the foster care system. In the year 2010 alone, 245,375 children entered foster care, of that number over 61,000 were black. An astounding 30,812 black children were waiting for adoption in 2010 (AFCARS). With so many children needing homes, it would seem their adoption would be open to any and all loving families, yet this is not the necessarily the case. Transracial adoption, which traditionally alludes to black children placed with white families, is riddled with difficulties. While transracial adoption can be a successful solution, many

The adoptive family may ignore or make little effort to incorporate into the family the cultural heritage of the adopted child (Adamec,136). This decision to leave the culture behind, outside the family, does not suggest that the child is neither accepted nor loved or cherished as their own. However, when the adoptive family also adopts and embraces the cultural identity of the child's birth culture, it enriches not only the adopted child but also the entire family and extended family as well. Another factor is attachment is the child’s age when they were adopted. The older the child when adopted, the risk of social maladjustment was found to be higher (Simon, 188). Most children when adopted at younger ages have a better chance to adjustment normally, than children adopted over the age of ten. An infant learns to trust quicker, than a ten-year old child does, but all of this depends on each case. Developmental theorist Eric Erikson, discusses trust issues in his theory of development. Erikson's first stage of development is “Trust versus Mistrust”, which states “if needs are dependably met, infants develop a sense of basic trust” (Myers, 149). For an adopted child, placing the child early in a key ingredient to successful attachment of child to parent and vice versa (Cox, 1). Such an attachment, which is strong among the majority of families throughout the paper, is an important

The National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW), for example, argue that transracial adoption is, in essence, a form of race and cultural genocide, claiming that children will not develop proper skills to survive in a society that is racially biased specifically against them. As a result the NABSW passed a resolution in 1972 calling for an end to the transracial adoption of African American children (Lee 2015). The NABSW feels that Black children should be raised by Black parents and express concern that Black children raised in White homes would fail to develop effective coping strategies to deal with racism and discrimination and would experience subsequent identity conflicts as they grew older. The idea is that the very basis of the upbringing does not convey the true thoughts, ideas and behaviors of the “real world”. In addition to the argument against transracial adoption, the NABSW also challenges traditional adoption practices and raises questions about institutionalized racism within the adoption profession. They question the criteria and the basic existing evaluation criteria for prospective adoptive couples that routinely prevented Black families from qualifying, and stated that even though prospective Black adoptive families did exist, adoption agencies were not only failing to recruit them and were, in fact, denying them in favor of white

In a 1987 study, conducted by Simon and Alstein, an Indian adopted child stated, “It bothers me that I’m Indian. People don’t look up to Indians. The whites always fought the Indians and the Indians got beat. We aren’t looked up to. There is nothing special about being Indian” (Sindelar, 2004). This clearly indicates that the native adoptee feels inferior to his White adoptive parents; therefore, the child was obviously unable to fully integrate into the White culture without feeling inferior. In the case of Baby Girl v. Adoptive Couple, she may have been at risk to feeling the same inferiority due to the extreme exposure of the White culture and the lack of exposure and pride towards her own ethnicity; therefore, causing possibilities of distress and discomfort in her own skin.

In 1972 the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) passed a resolution, which said, “Black children should be placed only with black families whether in foster care or adoption. Black children belong physically, psychologically and culturally in black families in order that they receive the total sense of themselves and develop a sound projection of their future.... Black children in white homes are cut off from the healthy development of themselves as black people.... We have committed ourselves to go back to our communities and work to end this particular form of genocide”(Silverman). Since then, family scientists have conducted extensive research on whether the negative affects of transracial adoption is as detrimental to the development of racial identify in children as the NABSW claims. Ultimately, many have come to the conclusion that it is better for a child to be in a loving family, regardless of race than to be orphaned. In this paper, I will outline arguments both for and against transracial adoption as well as offer suggestions on how parents can foster the development of a racial identity in their adopted child.

The older adopted child is a unique case of adoption where the child is of school age. The definition of what constitutes a case of older child adoption has changed numerous times over 20th century, but school age is currently the definition for an older child. This means children as early as five years old are considered difficult to place due to their age. Children who are considered a difficult placement are classified as special needs, even if they may or may not have any physical or mental disability. Other categories of special needs include transracial children and children who have a developmental disease. There has been an observation in recent studies that have shown the older a child is, the more likely they are to have behavior problems, as well as an increased chance of disruption in a family. The acceptability of older child adoption has only been recent, as older child adoption was rallied as acceptable by adoptive families. The claim that older children are adoptable is an extremely valid point, as in no way are these children different from any child who would be considered normal. This study shows how the mentality of an older child can effect an adoptive family, as well as how often disruptions occur and why they occur.

Child Adoption has been around for centuries. According to The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, the most recent number of national adoptions was last collected in 1992 and has not been collected since. The reason for this is that it is not legally required. In 1992, the number of adoptions that occurred in the U.S. was around 127,000. In total, there are 1.5 million children that are adopted in the U.S., which accounts for over 2% of all U.S. children (Donaldson, 2008). My sister’s adoption is considered to be transracial. That is when children are placed into a household that is of a different race. Only 8% of the total amounts of adoptions are transracial, which is pretty shocking to me. The website also offered the percentages of the most common ages that children are usually adopted. The most common age that children are adopted is under 1 year old, which is about 46%. Next are ages 1-4 at 43%, 5-9 years old at 8%, and over 9 years old which is only 3% (Donaldson, 2008). After reading these statistics, I decided to further research how the children of these varying ages may adapt as they are adopted at different ages.

The birth of a girl has never been a cause for celebration in China, and

The necessity of adoption in the world is astounding. Currently, there is an estimated 143 million orphans worldwide (Wingert, vol.151). As of 2007, there were 513,000 children living in foster care within the United States alone (Rousseau 21:14). International adoption in the United States was jumpstarted post World War II as a way of helping those children who were left homeless, after war had taken their parents. Although there are thousands of healthy children awaiting adoption in the United States, several American couples still turn to foreign adoption when seeking potential children. Americans often fail to realize the need for intervention within their own country and their duty to take care of domestic affairs before venturing to

In the last four decades, the concept of the American family has undergone a radical transformation, reflecting society¡¯s growing openness. Among all segments of society, there is a greater acceptance of a variety of family structures ¨C from single parenting to blended families to same sex parenting of children. The introduction of openness into the process of adoption offers new opportunities for children in need of a parent or parents and prospective parents wishing to create or expand their families. Meeting the requirements to become eligible to adopt no longer means being constrained by the conventions of an earlier generation.

     Adoption is metamorphosing into a radical new process that is both sweeping the nation and changing it. But this process is not an easy one, there are many steps to go through. Through research it is made a lot easier. Adoption is a also a highly visible example of a social institution that has benefits from and been reshaped by both the Internet and the exponential growth of alternative lifestyles, from single to transracial to gay. It is accelerating our transformation into a more multicultural society; even as it helps redefine out understanding of “family.” The process includes three main steps including a type of adoption, the techniques for location a baby for adoption, arranging