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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.

This article explodes traditional notions of ethnographic documentary, and instead positions the emerging practice of ethnocinema as a 21st century modality that falls within the paradigm of what Denzin calls the ‘eighth moment scholarship’ in this ‘fractured future’. Drawing on the monological, dialogic and imagistic ‘data’ from the ethnocinematic research project Cross‐Marked: Sudanese Australian Young Women Talk Education, the article uses ethnographic documentary film theory (including Minh‐ha, Rouch, and Aufderheide) and the critical pedagogical scholarship of McLaren to examine notions of performative identity construction and the possibility of intercultural identities and collaborations. Utilising the central metaphor of Minh‐ha’s ethnographic and filmic ‘zoo’, which cages those who are Othered by race, class, gender, sexuality and a myriad of differences, this article and ethnocinema overall seek to overthrow notions of difference, culture and community while recognising the increasingly prescient power of McLuhan’s dictum that the ‘medium is the message’ in this rhizomatic age.

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.

Confidentiality in adoption has been the norm in this country since the 1930s. Traditionally, it has been perceived as beneficial to all sides of the adoption triangle: the adoptive parents, the adoptee, and the birth parents. Adoption agencies have supported the policy of confidentiality, and as a result the practice of concealment is almost universal in the United States. Alaska, Hawaii, and Kansas are the only states that allow adult adoptees access to their birth and adoption information.

This study aims to discuss the ethical and political possibilities offered by the presence of teaching artists (TAs) and visual artwork in racially and culturally diverse high school literacy (English Language Arts) classrooms.

This study explores episodes from two separate ethnographic studies that were conducted in one teacher’s critical literacy classroom across a span of several years. This study uses a transliteracies approach (Stornaiulo et al., 2017) to think about “meaning-making at the intersection of human subjects and materials” (Kontovourki et al., 2019); the study also draws on critical scholarship on art and making (Ngo et al., 2017; Vossoughi et al., 2016). The TA, along with the materials and processes of artmaking, decentered the teacher and literacy itself, inviting in new social realities.

TAs’ collective interpretation of existing artwork and construction of new works made visible how both human and nonhuman bodies co-produced “new ways of feeling and being with others” (Zembylas, 2017, p. 402). This study views these artists as catalysts capable of provoking, or productively disrupting, the everyday practices of classrooms.

Both studies demonstrated new ways of feeling, being and thinking about difference, bringing to the forefront momentary possibilities and impossibilities of complex human and nonhuman intra-actions. The provocations flowing from the visual artwork and the dialogue swirling around the work presented opportunities for emergent and unexpected experiences of literacy learning.

This work is valuable in exploring the boundaries of literacy learning with the serious inclusion of visual art in an English classroom. When the TAs guided both interpretation and production of artwork, they affected and were affected by the becoming happening in the classroom. This study suggests how teaching bodies, students and artwork pushed the transformative potential of everyday school settings.

Intercountry adoptions (hereafter ICAs) in the USA are a form of sale of children. According to international policy, sale of children is an illicit social practice that involves improper financial gains by at least one party. Sale of children is a threat to legitimate ICA. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the policy and practice of ICAs in the USA, including pricing arrangements, demonstrate that US ICAs, which can have humanitarian aims and be legitimate forms of family development, comprise sale of children.

Internet searches and e-mail inquiries were used to obtain ICA cost data for a randomised sample of 10 per cent of the agencies in the USA that facilitate ICAs.

Cost information was obtained from only 25 per cent of the sample, suggesting lack of transparency in and available information about monetary costs of US ICAs. A range of US$12,000 to $40,000 suggests that US ICAs are expensive and costs vary. Large, undisclosed fees in the form of “required donations”, agency fees, and extensive foreign travel requirements imply third party economic gains are made through US ICA transactions.

US ICA agencies should disclose costs and employ transparent practices. US policies regulating ICAs should be clarified and strengthened. The US Government should ratify, implement, and enforce major children’s rights international policy standards.

International demand for adopted children may encourage child trafficking, child laundering, and kidnapping for profit (see Smolin, 2005), putting children, adoptive families, and birth communities at risk of breaches of basic human rights.

No study has offered systematic analysis of monetary costs of US ICAs and linked this analysis to policy and legitimacy of social practices.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors influencing the scale and nature of intercountry adoption (ICA) between the People’s Republic of China and the USA, and to describe the significance and contribution of each to ICA processes.

A documentary data analysis approach based upon the quantitative grounded theory: first, interpreting available data, and second, conducting a thematic analysis of the literature to generate a theory of key factors.

The results showed that changes in policies, ethical narratives and ideological shifts (principally the rise of nationalism) were highly influential in determining the scale and type of ICAs in successive years.

This paper concluded that China: US ICA is likely to continue only in small numbers with older and special needs children. However, China: US adoptions provide some examples of “best practice”. Understanding the interplay of factors explored theoretically in this study may guide future ICA arrangements between other country pairs.

Although a range of data has been collected on China: US ICA over a number of years, no systematic attempt has been made to link changes in those data to changes in the legal, social or cultural climate in which such adoptions take place. As well as providing new insights into the dynamics of ICA, the paper develops an original method which could be applied to parallel arrangements between other countries.

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