What Do Teachers Know about Adoptive Families, and How Do They Use It to Serve Adopted Children?

Abstract

Little is known about how teachers learn about the adoptive status or background of their students, or how they use this information. This mixed-methods study examined U.S. teachers’ experiences with obtaining and using information about children’s adoptive status and background. Data were gathered via an online survey. Respondents were 207 K-12 teachers, paraprofessionals, and other school professionals. Teachers most often learned a child was adopted from the child themselves, followed by the parents. Sometimes they learned the information in the context of a child’s emotional/behavioral difficulties or their specialized education plan. Almost half had wanted to know more about a child’s adoptive status or history but were unsure of how or who to ask. Findings have implications for teachers, school support staff, and adoptive families.

Keywords:

• Adoption
• adoptive families
• parent-teacher
• schools
• teachers

Notes

1 These 64 valid partial responses do not include those we eliminated based on evidence that they were fraudulent or “fake” responders (or possibly bots): namely, responses wherein only the “agree to participate” box was checked, but no valid responses were given; or, responses were given but in an illogical pattern and/or in impossibly short time frame (e.g., a duration of under 60 seconds). We assume that most of these fake respondents were people trying to gain eligibility for the random drawings for $50 Amazon gift cards.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Rudd Adoption Program.