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Childhood overweight and obesity is a worldwide problem and to treat it parents' detection has to be improved. The MapMe Body Image Scales (BIS) are a visual tool developed to improve parental perception of child weight in the United Kingdon (UK) based on British growth reference criteria. The aim of this study was to make a transcultural adaptation and validation of the MapMe BIS in Spain based on International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) cut offs A descriptive cross-sectional study was done. First, a translation and cultural adaptation was carried out. A total of 155 10–11-year-old children and their parents participated in this study. Children were measured to calculate their weight status, Body Mass Index (BMI), Body Fat Percentage (BFP) and Waist Circumference (WC), and their parents completed a purpose designed questionnaire about their perception and satisfaction of child's body weight status using the adapted BIS. Test-retest reliability, criterion validity and concurrent validity of the adapted BIS were analyzed. This study shows that the adapted MapMe BIS has good psychometric properties and is a suitable visual scale to assess parental perception of weight status in 10 and 11-year-old children in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Teaching Asian America in Elementary Classrooms" is a book that advocates for the inclusion of Asian American Studies in elementary education. The authors, who have personal experiences as teachers and scholars from Asian American backgrounds, address the lack of Asian American communities and histories in the U.S. curriculum. The book provides an introduction to teaching Asian American Studies and covers various themes such as identity, immigration, citizenship, war, activism, and contention. While the book does not specifically focus on Southeast Asian communities, it offers valuable content knowledge and resources for educators interested in incorporating Asian American Studies into their curriculum. In a related book review, Jenna Cushing-Leubner emphasizes the importance of teaching Asian American history in elementary classrooms and recommends "The Making of Asian America: A History" by Erika Lee as a valuable resource for educators. Cushing-Leubner highlights the need for diverse perspectives in the curriculum and the potential for this type of education to foster understanding and empathy among students. She also mentions her own research on heritage language and intergenerational trauma. [Extracted from the article]

Representations of adoptions tend to concentrate on normatively conceived forms of identity, which prioritize the genetic lineage of adoptees. In contrast, scholarship on autobiographical writing emphasizes that identities are not fixed but are always in process and intersectional because they are formed in within inequal power relations. Kay's experimental, autobiographical narrative Red Dust Road (2010) tackles the themes of adoption, the search for close relatives, and reunion. Many scholars of her autobiographical writings describe the fluidity of the diasporic adoptee identities created by her. My aim is more specific: I examine what I call Kay's continuously mobile, processual identity construction as a transracial adoptee in Red Dust Road. I argue that her identity formation, which is also intersectional, is interconnected with her multidirectional networks of attachments and the experimental form of her adoption narrative. In addition to an intersectional approach and autobiographical studies, I draw on insights from adoption studies. In my reading of Kay's work, I pay special attention to the inequalities derived from the intersecting vectors of adoption and race, which also intersect with other dimensions of difference, such as nation, gender, class, and sexual orientation. I employ the notion of the multidirectional in the sense in which McLeod applies it to the study of adoption writing. As I demonstrate, multidirectionality and the complex form of Red Dust Road provide versatile means of conveying Kay's fragmented acts of memory, which assist her ongoing mobile, processual identity construction. Her multidirectional lines of transformative attachments finally bond her to her adoptive and biogenetic families as well as other affective connections. While Kay's socially significant narrative indicates, amongst other adoption issues, that transracial adoptions can be successful, it is significant that it has no closure. The last chapter gestures toward potential new beginnings, which indicates that the story of adoption has no end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Many people experience withdrawal symptoms when they attempt to stop antidepressants. Withdrawal symptoms are readily misconstrued for relapse or ongoing need for medication, contributing to long-term use (> 12 months). Long-term antidepressant use is increasing internationally yet is not recommended for most people. Long-term use is associated with adverse effects including weight gain, sexual dysfunction, lethargy, emotional numbing and increased risk of falls and fractures. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of two multi-strategy interventions (RELEASE and RELEASE+) in supporting the safe cessation of long-term antidepressants, estimate cost-effectiveness, and evaluate implementation strategies. Methods: Design: 3-arm pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial effectiveness-implementation hybrid type-1. Setting: primary care general practices in southeast Queensland, Australia. Population: adults 18 years or older taking antidepressants for longer than 1 year. Practices will be randomised on a 1.5:1:1 ratio of Usual care:RELEASE:RELEASE+. Intervention: RELEASE for patients includes evidence-based information and resources and an invitation to medication review; RELEASE for GPs includes education, training and printable resources via practice management software. RELEASE+ includes additional internet support for patients and prescribing support including audit and feedback for GPs. Outcome measures: the primary outcome is antidepressant use at 12 months self-reported by patients. Cessation is defined as 0 mg antidepressant maintained for at least 2 weeks. Secondary outcomes: at 6 and 12 months are health-related quality of life, antidepressant side effects, well-being, withdrawal symptoms, emotional numbing, beliefs about antidepressants, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms; and at 12 months 75% reduction in antidepressant dose; aggregated practice level antidepressant prescribing, and health service utilisation for costs. Sample size: 653 patients from 28 practices. A concurrent evaluation of implementation will be through mixed methods including interviews with up to 40 patients and primary care general practitioners, brief e-surveys, and study administrative data to assess implementation outcomes (adoption and fidelity). Discussion: The RELEASE study will develop new knowledge applicable internationally on the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and implementation of two multi-strategy interventions in supporting the safe cessation of long-term antidepressants to improve primary health care and outcomes for patients. Trial registration: ANZCTR, ACTRN12622001379707p. Registered on 27 October 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on adoptee activism, particularly the experiences of three adoptee scholars. It applies autoethnographic and reflexive strategies to unpack their shared conversation and highlights the challenges faced by adoptees. It discusses the history of closed stranger adoption in Aotearoa New Zealand, starting from the 1955 Adoption Act, and emphasize the need for current law reform.

Basic biology tells us that each child has no more than two biological parents, one who supplies the egg and one who supplies the sperm. Adoption law in this country has generally followed biology, insisting only two parents be legally recognized for each child. Thus, every adoption begins with loss. Before a child can be adopted, that child must first be cut off from their family of birth, rendering the equation of adoption one of subtraction, not addition. This Article examines the biological model of adoption that insists on mimicking the nuclear family--erasing one set of parents and replacing them with another set of parents, and explores the history of adoption "matching"--requiring the new adoptive family to look identical to a biological family. But changes in family formation, to include same-sex adoption and transracial adoption, make conceivable other departures from biologically justified parenting, including legal recognition of more than two parents. This Article argues that an additive, rather than subtractive, model of adoption should prevail. In light of what we know from psychological literature about the importance of family connections in adoption and based on different adoption structures in France and other parts of the world, the Article also explores some of the trepidation about more than two parents, including the potential for conflict among multiple parents, and suggests solutions to ameliorate some of those concerns. Families that were once inconceivable are now flourishing; legal recognition of more than two parents should follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trope of interracial adoption is complex but fairly common in American literature, particularly as it results in the racist and racialized hallmark of displacing and depicting Black women as bad Black mothers--the antithesis of White maternity. This essay posits the trope's genesis at the center of abolitionist writer Harriet Beecher Stowe's extraordinarily influential anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. The novel has been heralded as the most significant literary accomplishment by an American writer, both nationally and internationally, during the nineteenth century. Notwithstanding, Stowe's novel sets in motion the cultural ideology that Whiteness--in the form of adoption by a free, White, Christian mother / savior--is a direct route out of bondage for enslaved Black children. Necessarily and in direct response, Harriet E. Wilson's autobiographical novel, Our Nig, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's poem, "Moses: A Story of the Nile," bring the complicated anti-Black and White constructions of power, motherhood, consanguinity, and kinship into sharp relief. Taken together, their writings form an episodic and polyscopic perspective on belonging, bondage, freedom, and agency. Most importantly, Wilson's and Harper's texts amplify the historical remainder of and tension between ways of understanding racialized adoption and insist that the literary (human) being that is the Black mother be made legible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to investigate interracial adoption narratives in children's picture books and explores how these narratives are constructed through the combined use of verbal and visual metaphors. The study examines a selection of six picture books published in the U.S.A. over the last few years and targeting a readership between the ages of four and eight. Interracial adoption books can help youngsters make sense of their reality and can be relied upon to initiate family conversations about difficult topics such as the lack of genetic bond and resemblance between parents and children. Since metaphors involve talking about one thing in terms of another, they can be strategically used in picture books to make complex concepts accessible to young readers. The study identifies the main metaphorical configurations of interracial adoption discourses in children's books by means of a hybrid methodological toolkit that integrates the approaches of Critical Discourse Analysis, Critical Metaphor Analysis and Multimodal Metaphor Studies. Findings suggest that narratives about interracial adoption are positively biased and often contain oversimplifications or inaccurate descriptions of adoptees' life situations; while these stories aim to offer children reassuring answers about complicated issues such as identity and ethnicity, they frequently fail to provide validation for adoptees' ambivalent feelings towards their new situations and families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses (pre-)adoption narratives by investigating a selection of children's picture books featuring multi-ethnic families. The research examines both textual and pictorial resources, focusing specifically on the use of metaphors as a tool of cognition which may help an audience of young readers understand and become acquainted with unfamiliar notions connected to the process of interracial adoption. Attention is also devoted to the identification, interpretation, and explanation of recurring metaphors in the books as a means of framing (pre-)adoption experiences, i.e. foregrounding certain aspects of the target domains and backgrounding others. The analysis has revealed an almost ubiquitous presence of the journey metaphor in the sample of books. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The family has historically been considered the foundational block to society. The familial structure, ideally, establishes the moral groundwork of the nation. Parental figures are to instill the future generation with civic responsibility through moral and loving guidance. The individuals that make up a family, in turn reflect the type of citizens that make up the larger community. The familial archetype, in general, has progressed from one relying on and prioritizing biology to a more inclusive model that recognizes families based not in blood but legal kinship. This research extends an existing idea presented by historian, Barbara Melosh. Through her book, Strangers and Kin, Melosh described how adoptive families occupy two spaces: "public and private realms."1 Despite the private nature of the family, adoptive families are created through public law. Drawing on the theme of duality, this paper intends to explore citizenship through the historical lens of United States adoption, and more specifically international-interracial adoption by United States citizens. The process of adoption is an extremely personal experience and yet it opens an entirely new dialogue for understanding citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous children are overrepresented in child protection systems in the United States and to an even greater degree in Canada. Canada has recently passed federal child welfare legislation, Bill C-92, with the goal of affirming the rights of Indigenous Peoples and establishing guidelines with respect to child and family services for Indigenous children. The aim of this article is to contribute to ongoing discussions about the recently passed Canadian legislation, drawing on lessons learned in the United States context. The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), passed in the United States in 1978, has created a legislative paradigm, which in some cases has been bolstered by statelevel provisions. The ICWA can provide helpful lessons to consider in Canada as the new legislation is implemented and amended over time. Specifically, we examine elements of the ICWA related to accessibility and compliance with the law, along with deeper analysis of state-level statutes related to adoption provisions in light of the phenomenon of transracial adoption of Indigenous children. As reactions to the Canadian federal law have been mixed, this policy analysis may be supportive of conversations regarding its further development, particularly related to funding and enforcement. On a broader level, considerations of Indigenous community jurisdiction over child and family policies within our discussion are relevant to various settler-colonial contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on oropharyngeal dysphagia (OD), a condition that can affect nutritional status, especially in older adults, and discusses its causes and consequences, including malnutrition, sarcopenia, frailty, and various chronic diseases. It highlights the importance of timely diagnosis and treatment of OD to prevent health deterioration and complications.

Sahar's Bangladeshi mom had died during delivery and her daughter's life was saved by Salma, a Rohingya woman. The 50,000 takas that Salma had saved from vegetable farming and raising chickens gave her the conviction that she could raise a dying child. Even if Salma's husband and family-in-law did not agree with the adoption, Salma, who migrated to Cox's Bazar in infancy, had seen in the camps how to sustain the survival of this dying and motherless child. Salma and Sahar's story represents the interventions that resilient human beings put into effect with the support of key family members and internal resources. This is also an example signalling that in the current lingering crisis, we need to create bridges between earlier and newer Rohingya cohorts as well as to advocate for the Rohingya diaspora to be included in the process of caring for new lives. Ultimately, Salma and Sahar's story is an illustration of the contribution of the Rohingya to Bangladeshi society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the particular contexts in which families that adopted children from other countries and racial groups negotiate the challenges posed by the "transracial adoption paradox": the contradictions in daily social interaction that stem from the dual social position of the children vis-à-vis their host/adopting society. While enjoying the privileges associated with living in families belonging to the racial and ethnic hegemonic group, these children are, at the same time, potentially vulnerable to the kind of discrimination and social stigmatization endured by racial minorities. The data have been extracted from the "Adoptive families and their lifestyles" survey (2012) and are based on a questionnaire answered by 230 Spanish interracial families who adopted children abroad. The results show how adoptive parents tend to put in practice socialization patterns close to assimilation/acculturation into the mainstream culture, while reproducing at the same time the ideology of colorblind racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cultural diversity is present in all societies. Nurses must be culturally competent to provide quality care. Objective: To validate the Scale of Attitude toward Immigration in Nursing (EAIE) in Portuguese and to know the attitudes toward the immigration of the first-year undergraduate students of a nursing school in Portugal. Methodology: Descriptive, exploratory, and analytical study, with the translation and transcultural adaptation of the EAIE to the Portuguese language, composed of 39 items. The participants were 143 students. Results: Scale with a good internal consistency, assessed with Cronbach's α (0,94). With the univariate analysis of the scale and each separate item, significant attitudinal differences were identified between men and women in 6 items, and among age groups in 2 items. Conclusion: The attitudes of a portion of the students are not favorable to the full recognition of the rights of health and social resources of the immigrants. It is necessary to develop the training in cultural competence and the Universal Right to Health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study reveals the therapeutic origins of the "good mother" ideal in a rarely studied context, that of transracial adoptive mothering. Using a comparative discursive analysis supplemented by illustrative case analysis, we show that what it means to be a "good mother" in transracial adoptive mothering discourse differs significantly from the ideal established in mainstream mothering discourse. The key differences uncovered relate to publicly contested challenges to legitimacy, the experience of stigma for families adopting children of difference races, and a relative dearth of market‐based solutions to these challenges. We propose therapeutic ideology as a powerful macro‐level theoretical construct capable of explaining the self‐reinforcing cycle of mothers' anxiety, expert advice, and market‐mediated solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the residential requirements and customs in the intercountry adoption process and their adverse effects to both adopting parents and the children to be adopted. Other topics include the adoption provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the adoption processes in Tanzania, Uganda, and Botswana, as well as the Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption.

"Those who believe in children’s human rights need to promote children’s basic human right to be liberated from the conditions under which they live in orphanages or on the street and to grow up with parents who can provide the loving nurturing that is essential for human flourishing." -- Elizabeth Bartholet “In short, there is a struggle for the soul of the human rights movement, and it is being waged in large part through the proxy of genealogy.” -- Philip Alston “[A]doption, while a practice that affects a small and shrinking number of people, has been important to national and international politics out of all proportion to its numerical significance.” --Laura Briggs [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The main idea of the article about using race as an analytical tool is to demonstrate how race can be a salient factor in how people experience, inhabit the world and consequently family. Interracial adoption is discussed as a phenomenon which borrows from the particular fears and order of a society. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: the research problem concerns the question of how the concept of racial categorization can be understood in a racially mixed frame of reference relating to the experience of interracial adoption. The article uses the method of critical analyses as well as the analyses of the reference literature. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The first section of the article discusses race as a social construct, the second indicates white as the unmarked category and shows that the rest of racial categories is marked in contrast to whiteness. The third part provides justification for a thesis that in racial categorization, as in other social classifications, one category tends to dominate, usually taken for granted as normative, typical and most desirable. It causes social and parenting problems for the adoptive family. RESEARCH RESULTS: The result of the argumentation is that race is often socially recognized as inherent and inherited quality that is seen to fit an adopted child for a specific social situation. Children are assigned to race categories based on assumptions about descent. Regardless of the fact, the phenomenon of interracial adoption exposes the fragility of conventional meanings of human races. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: the social acceptance of interracially adoptive families requires a society which does not define itself on the facts of blood and race allegiances, but on a set of deeply humanistic ideals.

Some academic publications infer from studies of transracial adoptees' IQs that East Asian adoptees raised in the West by Whites have higher IQs than Western Whites, and that White adoptees raised by Whites have higher IQs than Black adoptees raised by Whites. Those publications suggest that this is because genetic differences give East Asians a higher mean IQ than Whites, and Whites a higher mean IQ than Blacks. This paper proposes a parsimonious alternative explanation: the apparent IQ advantage of East Asian adoptees is an artifact caused by ignoring the Flynn effect and adoption's beneficial effect on IQ, and most of the IQ disadvantage of Black adoptees disappears when one allows for attrition in the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, and acknowledges the results of other studies. Diagnosing these artifacts suggests a nil hypothesis: East Asian, White, and Black adoptees raised in the same environment would have similar IQs, hinting at a minimal role for genes in racial IQ differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A crucial concern regarding the adoption of Indigenous children into "white" families is the separation of the child from her/his Indigenous community and the struggles for the children involved. This paper examines the struggles faced by one Anishinawbe child and his family, the Lees, to come to terms with this dynamic when they adopted him in the early 70s. After the adoption they came to understand themselves as a family that was no longer "white", one that faced unique challenges as well as opportunities. The initial strategy of the parents was to maintain his contact with the Indigenous community and culture. However, it became apparent that they had to find a way to Indigenize themselves as well. This was accomplished with the assistance of the Indigenous community. This story, unfortunately, does not reflect the majority of transracial adoptions. It is a hopeful one but also raises questions for the role of Indigenous communities, adoptive parents and in particular for policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Irish-American adoptions were a revolutionary way of dealing with Ireland's problem of the illegitimate child. Ireland had long been promoted as a Catholic, and thus, a morally pure country. Having a child out of wedlock often resulted in the mother and child being shunned by their family and community and having little choice but to seek the help of church-run institutions. These institutions began facilitating illegal extraterritorial adoptions in 1947 to relieve mounting pressures as those seeking their help continued to grow annually. These adoptions were heavily concerned with protecting the religious faith of the child, and this often took prominence over the quality of the home. The adoptions were facilitated exclusively by these church-run institutions, allowing for complete control over the selection of prospective parents. The standards of these adoptions fell well below what was expected on the U.S. domestic scale, with no visits to the homes of prospective parents, and, crucially, there was no way to facilitate the reversal of an adoption. During the early life of the Irish- American adoptions, the Irish Department of External Affairs had little involvement and only issued passports for children that had been adopted. However, this changed in 1951, as the 'Jane Russell Case' attracted front-page media attention. The Russell case highlights the lackadaisical approach of many of those within the department to exporting some of Ireland's youngest citizens. Undue publicity continued in the early 1950s, notably with the German newspaper, 8 Uhr Blatt. It is this media attention that forced the department to finally address the glaring issues that severely hindered the success of Irish-American adoptions. The department was powerless to do anything once the child had been passed into the care of the adoptive parents. The Adoption Act of 1952 marked a major turning point in the care of illegitimate children in Ireland. Legal adoption was opened on the domestic and international fronts. The conditions and standards of the Irish-American adoptions improved dramatically under this act as requirements for adoption were officially put in place, and while they still had their issues, the standard of these adoptions continued to improve through their latter stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the lived experience (erlebnis) of adult transracial, Korean-born adoptees (Ibyangin; Yngvesson & Coutin, 2006) raised in the United States by White families. Long interviews (McCracken, 1988) were conducted with fourteen young adult (age 26-30) Korean-born adoptees inperson or by phone. The study was anchored in the constructivist-interpretivist research paradigm (Ponterotto, 2005) and utilized the phenomenological inquiry model (Moustakas, 1994) to explore the essence of the international transracial adoption experience. Two major clusters of meaning with additional subthemes were related to a) identity development, and b) decision to return to Korea. Limitations of the study are reviewed, implications for follow-up research are presented, and clinical applications are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on adoptions of girl children post the emancipation movement. It offers a history of transracial adoptions and examines the possible role of racial and gender ideologies during 19th century in postemancipation societies. The author relates cases of informal arrangements of adoptions.

A literary criticism of "The Love Wife" book by author Gish Jen is presented. Topics discussed include depiction of an Asian-American family with prevalence of an interracial parents; depiction of issues associated with mixed-race adoption in families under the book with illustration of One Child Policy introduced at China in 1979 for population boom control; and analysis of issues associated with transracial adoptees.

The article talks about the increasing number of interracial adoptions in the U.S. Topics discussed include almost one-third of adoptions coming from China, single parents and gay people adopting as an alternative way to have a family, and there not being enough literature about adoption for the use of educators.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's tackling of race, immigration, and interracial relationships in his early plays and films is often applauded for offering a prescient treatment of topics largely neglected in the late 1960s and early 1970s. His experimentation with and blending of both queer and leftist political styles appeals to contemporary critics and artists grappling with the continuing challenge of 'decolonizing' structures of racial feeling. Nonetheless, the politics of race in Fassbinder's films from the early 1970s, including Whity (1970) and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), has also come under more skeptical scrutiny during the past decade. Critics have assessed Fassbinder's aesthetic alongside the biographical and social context of his filmmaking career, and in particular, his relationships with men of color who also starred in Whity and Ali, among other films. Some note a troubling tension between the professed antiracist politics of Fassbinder and of some of his film characters, on the one side, and the way in which the camerawork allows and invites racist pleasures, on the other. Perhaps due to their very ambiguity, Fassbinder's films offer compelling objects of attachment and resignification for contemporary artists of color working in Germany. In this article I discuss two video installations by Ming Wong and one by Branwen Okpako that engage films by Fassbinder as productive intertexts for their own artistic reflections on racial oppression, solidarity, and desire in contemporary Germany. Wong's Lerne Deutsch mit Petra von Kant (Learn German with Petra von Kant, 2007) considers the consequences of appropriating camp, high melodrama, and masochism for dramatizing race and immigration. Can such an appropriation dismantle national or racialized identities, analogous to Bitter Tears' dismantling of gender? Angst Essen/Eat Fear (2008) hones in on, and subtly revises, the sources of the film's troubling political ambiguity. Okpako's Seh ich was, was du nicht siehst? (Do I see something you don't?, 2002) contextualizes the masochistic figure of Whity with a discussion of black actors' working conditions. It thereby complements the parodic subversion of white fantasies with a consideration of the agency exercised by racialized subjects' contending with racial difference in the art world and in so-called postracial societies more generally. The video installations highlight the aesthetic inventiveness of Fassbinder's films, but also use the political shortcomings of his works and changes in the contexts of reception as opportunities for imaginative appropriations and creative openings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]