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The practice of transracial adoption often triggers strong emotions, effecting views on its ethical validity, both from individuals who are pro transracial adoption and those who strongly resist transracial adoption. This chapter will consider transracial adoption of children of African-Caribbean origin and its psychological impact along a continuum of psychological wellbeing, psychological adjustment and aspects of mental health. The chapter will draw on literature from the USA and, where available, from the UK.

One of the earliest publications on transracial adoption by Grow and Shapiro (1974) explored the psychological adjustment of African-American children placed within white American families. This study along with later studies (Silverman & Feigelman, 1981) concluded that the children were adjusting well in placement. Further early research appeared to suggest that transracial placements have little negative impact on issues of self-esteem, racial or self-identity or intellectual development (Curtis, 1996; Hayes, 1993; Hollingsworth, 1997, 1998; McRoy, 1994; Simon, Altstein & Melli, 1994; Vrogeh, 1997).

The undermining impact on mental health for transracial adoptees appears to be an argument related to the disconnect between the child’s developing racial identity and lack of preparation for racism and the cultural and ethnic group social devaluation likely to be experienced in a white racist society. The impact of loss of ethnic identity is said to be a key issue in the research on transracial adoption. Ethnic identity is the connection or recognition that one is a member of a specific ethnic or racial group and coming to adopt those associated characteristics into the group associated cultural and historical connections into oneself identity (Rotheram & Phinney, 1987). The establishment of a secure and accurate racial identity is said to be a protective factor in psychological adjustment. This chapter will explore issues and narratives related to this argument.

In this chapter, we use the concepts of emotional labor or emotion work to examine the experiences of transracial families – white families rearing Black adoptees. We focus on the emotion work done by the parents to inculcate and develop positive racial identities for their adoptive children as their adoptees experience racial mistreatment. We also use the concept of white racial framing to examine strategies for effectively coping with racial mistreatment. African Americans have more emotion work than the members of dominant group because of their status as stigmatized minorities in American society. African Americans adopted by white families have even greater emotion work because they tend to have the extra burden of living in predominately white communities where there are fewer people of color to serve as positive role models in the socialization process.

The experience of going natural or deciding to rock an afro, wash-n-go, twist-out, or braided updo on a campus where similar faces are rarely seen in the classroom, in the residence hall, or even in the nearby local community can be one fraught with numerous personal and political identity tensions. Nonetheless, this is the experience for many Black women collegians, both undergraduate and graduate, who choose to wear their natural hair in its kinky, curly, coily, or afro-textured state while in college. Through an intersectional perspective we examine the stories of six Black women and their experiences with their hair, identities, and community as they transitioned to wearing their natural hair. Through this study we center the bodies, voices, and needs of Black women as they navigate the complexities of thriving in a Eurocentric environment (i.e., a predominantly white university). This chapter ends with a call for greater attention to the meaningfulness of Black women's hair and a discussion of strategies for campus agents to more intentionally support Black women throughout their development in college.

This chapter is an inquiry into the paradoxes in discourses of ethnicity and race as well as of diversity and inclusion, centering on current movements in higher education. It aims to problematize the essentialized racial structure in American social discourses while re-evaluating academic institutions’ approaches to diversity. With a focus on Asian American students, it employs student narrations and statistical evidence to underline the neglected aspects of the heterogeneity, hybridity, and marginalization of “Asians.” The complex diversity among “Asians” and their ambiguous positionality provide insights into the challenges and paradoxes of our conceptions and practices of ethnicity, race, and diversity in general. On the one hand, I argue about the risk of prevalent practices that, to varying degrees, reconsolidate the black-white dichotomy; as they constantly strengthen disparities between the two races under the premises of the homogeneity within each category, they exclude the experiences of non-black minorities in social spheres. On the other hand, I challenge the disjuncture of diversity in theory versus in practice. While calling for a multiracial coalition to practice diversity and inclusion, I underscore the salience of unbiased perspectives in pedagogical approaches, in which, interethnicity and multiraciality are promoted, as hybrid identities beyond race are recognized. This de-Eurocentric approach ultimately aims to undermine racial essentialization and white supremacy.

Existing research indicates that internationally adopted children exhibit elevated rate of emotional and behavioral difficulties. They are explained by the effects of early trauma, disturbed attachment, institutionalized behavior, and delays in cognitive development. Early interventions, therefore, focus on medical screening and cognitive testing, while adjustment aspect of early period for the entire family is neglected. The role of adoptive family is viewed as that of rehabilitation, its role as an active agent of change is ignored or underestimated.

The approach grounded in family system theory and focused on the family process is effective for resolution of child's difficulties. This chapter demonstrates that early intervention centered on mutual adjustment of the family and the child prevents escalation of child's emotional tension, defiant behavior, and formation of rigid patterns of family interactions and psychopathology in children. It leads to behavioral improvements, and builds a foundation for lasting relationship. Therapy for American families and their school-age adopted children from Russia was simultaneously conducted in two languages by a bilingual psychologist, a native Russian speaker. Principles of such intervention are formulated: (1) The form of intervention is a dialogue between all family members. It facilitates safe self-expression and eases overwhelming emotions. (2) Child's behavior is understood within a framework of adjustment to a transition, associated with experience of novelty and loss. To prevent complications of unresolved grief, the child's loss is identified and acknowledged. (3) Changes that effect existing family system (such as adoptive siblings) and cause tensions are addressed. (4) Certain problematic behaviors and their former adaptive function are reframed and thus normalized within a context of child's culture. (5) In the process, history of child's life unfolds, integrating the past and the present, facilitating continuity of memory, and preventing disruption of identity.

We discuss adoption as a diverse family structure in America. Adoption has existed in some form throughout the history with the portrayal varying by historical epoch. Adoption has been both disparaged and idealized to perpetuate the interest of elite players. This chapter discusses adoption in terms of the changing demographic which 21st century families face. In this manuscript, we first discuss the history of adoption in the United States including its impact as social control of premarital sex. Then the three players in the adoption triad are discussed and analyzed. Finally, we highlight how demographics of race, class, gender, and sexuality impact the adoption experience by 21st century families. Specifically, we explore the recent National Survey of Adoptive Parents from the United States Center for Disease Control and look at the modern adoption experience

Height, weight, fingerprints: the body is, as is well known, an important marker of identity. However, since the 1980s and 1990s, it has provided new services to the process of attesting individual identities.

During this period, the development of molecular biology created new means of identification thanks to DNA tests; in addition, certain children (adopted, born of artificial procreation) began to demand to be able to meet their biological parents ‘in the flesh’ to ease their ‘identity’ suffering; Finally, around birth and death, new practices have emerged that aim to reinforce – through breastfeeding, skin-to-skin contact, haptonomy, the exposure of corpses – the identities of father, mother and child… Are there common points to these different practices? If so, what might their cultural meanings be? And what lessons can we learn from them about the history of the certification of individual identities?

Through these new practices, a great collective narrative – a narrative in practice – is taking shape. It tells of the importance that the body, biology and nature are supposed to play today in fortifying identities and social ties. What emerges behind these new – or renewed – devices and discourses is a whole definition of the subject?

In this chapter, Mousumi De presents the principles and implications of CRT in the context of Asian and Asian American experiences including the perspective, features, strategies, and new directions on how to facilitate the preparation of teacher candidates and work with all teachers to understand the complexity of the Asian and Asian American identity, their racialized experiences, and their sociohistorical, transnational contexts that continue to influence their lived experiences. This chapter highlights the important issues and challenges facing Asians and Asian Americans that have been camouflaged by their stereotypical treatment as model minorities. It also shares the work of many scholars on approaches for promoting diversity and inclusion, such as implementing anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and inclusive history curricula, cultural citizenship education, teaching for social justice, and culturally responsive and culturally sustaining teaching for addressing the marginalization of Asians and Asian Americans.