Search

This paper focuses on successful adoptive parents and domestically (in-country) adopted Romanians during adolescence. Data were collected on 55 adoptees, 19 boys (34.5%) and 36 girls (65.5%), aged 11-16 years old at the time of assessment, and 55 adoptive mothers. The research was undertaken within the "Factors which Influence Successful Adoption" project with funding from the Romanian Ministry of Education. The data presented in this paper are based on the Friends and Family Interview for adolescents (FFI) and the Parental Development Interview (PDI). Successful adoption is defined as an adoptee having a secure attachment and adoptive parents keeping the joy/pleasure towards their child and adoption. Results suggest some significant differences between the securely attached adolescents and their parents and the insecurely attached ones and theirs. Implications for adoption practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adoption is a legal process by which a child becomes part of a new family with parental responsibility transferring from birth parents to adoptive parents. It is a major decision for all involved. Paediatricians can be involved in the process in a variety of ways seeing the child for a health assessment, reviewing the available medical information on birth parents and adoptive parents and in meeting with the prospective adoptive parents to discuss the health information. This paper describes my personal practice in these meetings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Early adopters play an important role in the innovation diffusion process. Over the past decades, many factors have been identified as predictors for early adoption of innovations. Less attention has been paid to the relationship between the early adoption of one generation of a specific product and the early adoption of successive product generations. This paper analyzes how early adoption of a new product generation depends on ownership, purchase experience and adoption times for previous generations of the same product. The paper develops predictive models of early adoption for four generations of video player products, based on a survey among 815 Australian consumers. The model allows the testing of various hypotheses. It is shown that previous generation variables outperform conventional socio-demographic and psychographic variables in predicting early adoption but also that the two variable types complement each other. The best predicting models include both previous generation and socio/psychographic variables. It is concluded that previous generation models have substantial merits for new product forecasting as they are more parsimonious than conventional models and the data required to estimate them is relatively easy to obtain. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper self-reflectively explores from a sociological perspective various issues experienced by an infant adopted into a family of a different race. These experiences cover childhood, adolescence and the search for identity, young adulthood, and a birth-mother reunion. This paper informs adoptive parents of various issues that may impact their adopted child and become a lifelong challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a study conducted in the U.S. of successful adoptions of children from the pubic or governmental child welfare system. The research explores implications for policy and practice that might also apply to the Romanian context. Overall findings suggest greater communication openness is an area for increasing success post-adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes research about the expectations of pre-adoptive families during the evaluation and preparation period. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 50 adults (23 couples plus 4 single females) involved in adoption procedures in Arad County, Romania, in 2011. Results were used to develop a plan to support families in their role as adoptive parents and in helping them reshape their expectations regarding adoption and adoptable children. Results indicate the need for changes in adoption procedures, including preparing families for adoption, and the need of potential adoptive families to adjust their expectations of the child they are adopting. Such an approach improves post-adoption adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adoption is a process in which the adopted child is separated from his/her own family and parents, and is placed in a new family of the adoptive parents. It involves a major shift in the life of all those who are involved in it. Both the parents and the adopted child need to do a great deal of adjustments throughout their life. For parents, adjustment to adoption begins with infertility and the consideration of adoption as a means of achieving parenthood. It continues throughout the early family life cycle as they integrate their child fully into the family and begin a process of sharing adoption information with him/her. The adoptive parents need to make the child their own, accepting him/her entirely both in the present and in the past and finally integrating him/her into the new family. Once children know that they are adopted, they begin the process of adjustment that involves the integration of the meaning of their unique family status and their dual connection to the two families into an emerging sense of self. There are many factors that contribute to the successful creation of a new family through adoption. This article is intended to reflect on the practice of adoption and the intentions/motivations/reasons for adoption among a sample of couples. The paper presents a study conducted among the adoptive parents in Kerala. A total of 356 adoptive parents from six districts of the state were interviewed for the study. One of the major findings of the study is that among the majority of the parents, the primary motive for adoption was to have a child and thus completing their family, as they do not have a child of their own. It is hoped that the findings and descriptions will be helpful and that practitioners will find it useful for their professional interventions with those adoptive families who are in need of support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on the dilemma of adoptive parenthood. The main objective of this paper is to show the existence of in congruous role obligations in the situation of adoptive relations, and to indicate the likely consequences of current modes of dealing with the dilemma which the incongruity produces. Secondarily, in terms of methodology, this paper is meant to help demonstrate the applicability of structural functional analyses to the strategies of welfare practice. Reference to the adoptive situation is here restricted to a single type of it. According to the author, acceptance of values which are inappropriate to the adoptive situation may occur the more readily because adoptive parental roles as alternatives to those of biological parenthood are at present neither adequately designed nor fully sanctioned. In the absence of institutionalized learning patterns concerning adoptive family rules, biological parenthood provides the most readily available frame of reference for the self-perceptions and role definitions of adopters.

Introduction: Adoption is one of the major protective factors for the adjustment of children who experienced abandonment and institutionalization (Zeanah et al., 2009). Studying the effects of early deprivation in adolescence is particularly useful, because adolescence is a critical period of development and because this period allows to consider the effect of an enduring positive experience in the adoptive family. Moreover, parents' secure attachment representations can help to repair early negative experiences, particularly considering their reflective function. In this paper we will analyse the effect of adoption in relation to early deprivation in a sample of 27 Italian adolescents, adopted before the age of 6 and observed in adolescence (11- 16 years). These results are part of an international research project (Pierrehumbert, 2009), aiming at collecting information on internationally adopted children. Method: Early deprivation was rated from biographical informations provided by parents (age at adoption, changes in pre-adoptive care, period in institution, etc.) and from a retrospective form of the Disturbance of Attachment Interview (DAI)(Smyke. A. & Zeanah, 1999). Adolescents' adaptation was rated by CBCL/YSR(Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001), filled by both parents and by adolescents. Measures of different aspect of parental caregiving representations, were derived from the Parent Development Interview (PDI)(Aber, Slade, Berger, Bresgi, & Kaplan, 1985), a semi-structured interview, which explores the parental representations of the ongoing relationship with their children, addressed to adoptive mothers and fathers separately. Each interview has been video-recorded, transcribed, and rated on a 4 point scale. Through correlation, we analyzed the relationship between early deprivation and adaptation in adolescence, considering the effect of parental attachment measures. We hypothesized that risk factors in pre-adoptive experience negatively correlate with adolescents' adaptation rated by CBCL/YSR, and that parental positive caregiving representations, particularly parental competence, could moderate this relationship. Results and conclusions: Contrarily to our preliminary hypotheses, the level of pre-adoption risk was not associated with the behavioral adjustment in adolescence. This could be due to the protective effect of having lived for a number of years in a supporting adoptive family. With respect to the caregiving characteristics, our results are apparently less encouraging: maternal competence does not influences adolescents' adjustment, and only the relationships between actual difficult experiences are evident. Further research could help to disentangle the influence of different variables affecting adopted adolescents' behavior adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces papers published within the issue, including one on the link between adoption and resilience in Romanian adopted teenagers, another on evaluating the attachment security of potential foster and adoptive parents and one on interventions for young adopted children's parents.

Copyright of Canadian Social Work Review / Revue Canadienne de Service Social is the property of Canadian Association for Social Work Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Rick Shiomi's Mask Dance marked the beginning of Theater Mu, an Asian-American theater company established in Minneapolis in 1992. Shiomi had been searching for his identity as a dramatist of Asian descent, and as such much valued explorations of Asian-American issues in Minneapolis, a city with a relatively small Asian-American population. Mask Dance commemorates the birth of Theater Mu. Reportedly, Minnesota has more than 1,000 Korean adoptees, and Shiomi portrays their complicated feelings for their white adoptive parents and their own identity crises, employing the form of a traditional Korean mask dance, "Pongsan T'alch'um." These Korean mask plays are colored with down-to-earth aspects, which often satirize the privileged class. Likewise, Shiomi's mask drama, despite its serious topic, contains many satirical features. This paper, consequently, aims to explore how Shiomi portrays the problems of the Korean adoptees by employing this particular comedic style. The use of masks is also quite pioneering in Mask Dance; the play presents Spirit, wearing a mask, as its narrator. Spirit's role is innovative in the sense that it not only "masks" the consciousness of the Korean children, but also "unmasks" their buried feelings. While Shiomi's use of masks is set apart from their use in Greek theater, it follows the same fundamental nature. That is, it follows Peter Hall's extended definition of a mask, which posits that Greek theater, itself, is a "mask" in the way in which it keeps "all fundamental or violent action off stage." By outwardly cloaking and distancing the main characters' agony through the use of masks, Shiomi maintains an objective viewpoint and brings substantiality to this Asian-American performance. This play, consequently, can be marked as a revolutionary step in American theater as it established common ground among Asian-American issues, Korean traditional mask drama, and the classical use of masks on stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Potential adoptive parents, especially if it is a transcultural, transracial, or transnational adoption, can expect to be asked, "How are you going to assure that the child's culture and ethnicity will be maintained?" Using excerpts from a larger study of parents participating in three adoption on-line forums over a period of 1-2 years, this paper examines how adoptive parents address the question of cultural and ethnic literacy. Adoptive parents tend to look to adoption agencies, professionals, and each other for guidance on how to engage in cultural socialization. Therefore, these discussions are situated within a discursive analysis of how transcultural adoption is addressed in popular adoption books. Together these examinations illustrate both the changes in constructions of adopted children, specifically, constructions involving race, ethnicity, and culture, as well as the limitations of our post-racial discourse. As exemplars of alternative family structures, transcultural adoptive families advance new ways of understanding diversity in the 21th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Socialno Delo is the property of Socialno Delo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores the issue of social stigmatizations of adoptive parents. In the first four sections of this paper is defined the concept of social stigmatization and are synthesized, on the basis of the international studies, the attributes that determine the social stigmatization of adoptive parents, the social attitude toward the adopters and the emotional experiences of stigmatized persons. In the fifth section we present the main results of an exploratory study conducted from April to July 2008. We intended to identify the opinions of the respondent toward the adoption process and the potential source of stigmatization of adoptees and adopters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politica y Sociedad is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Papers: Revista de Sociologia is the property of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Papers: Revista de Sociologia is the property of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)