'Race', Ethnicity and Adoption"This important study provides a unique and comprehensive analysis of research into the development of adoption policy and practice regarding black and minority ethnic children in the care of local authorities...I found this book intellectually stimulating and often provocative - it does not make comfortable reading but in the final analysis the case for retaining a commitment to placing children in families which reflect their ethnicity is strongly made." - Felicity Collier, the Director of British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering. * What are the needs of adopted minority ethnic children? * To what extent can white families meet these needs? * Should the emphasis on ethnic matching of children and families in adoption be relaxed? This book reviews the long running and often fierce controversy surrounding the adoption of black and minority ethnic children, either transracially into white families or into matched 'same race' placements. Through analysis of research and the writings of protagonists, the core concepts - namely the nature and salience of racial/ethnic identity, cultural heritage and dealing with racism - are explored and located within broader debates on 'race' and the family. The history of the controversy is set out in terms of the competing paradigms offered by liberalism and black radicalism, and more recent 'post-structuralist' influences. The author argues the need to see adoption (and especially that of black children) as inherently political and contested. While broadly supporting the case for 'same race' adoption, it is suggested that this must rest on acknowledgement of, and engagement with, social and psychological complexities, rather than their suppression beneath doctrinaire formulae. 'Race', Ethnicity and Adoption sets the issues in the wider context of a multiracial society and its politics, and will be of particular interest to social workers and child care professionals, but will also appeal more widely to students of sociology, and social and public policy. |
Contents
overview | 6 |
The liberal paradigm | 32 |
The black radical paradigm | 59 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
adoptees adoption agencies Adoption and Fostering adoption policy adoptive families Agencies for Adoption areas argued Asian Bagley birth families black and minority black child black children black communities black families black identity black radical paradigm Britain British Agencies cent challenge Chapter children of mixed colour blindness context critique culture debate deracialization developments difficult effects emphasis ethnic matching ethnicity and adoption evidence experiences foster care Gill and Jackson Gilroy immigration important institutional racism Ladner liberal paradigm linked London McRoy and Zurcher minority ethnic children minority ethnic families mixed parentage mixed relationships multiracial Newbury Park noted notion open adoption Paul Boateng placements political positive post-structuralism post-structuralist psychological questions race racial identity recruitment relation relatively same-race adoption same-race policies seen self-esteem shire counties significant Simon and Altstein Social Services Inspectorate society studies tion Tizard and Pheonix transracial adoption Triseliotis white families white parents wider