The Dialogic Construction of “Adoption” in Online Foster Adoption Narratives

Abstract

One hundred online narratives of foster adoption were analyzed qualitatively with the goal of identifying what, if any, competing discourses animated the meaning of “adoption” constructed by adoptive parents. Framed in relational dialectics theory, two discourses were identified: (1) the Discourse of Utilitarian Acquisition, in which adoption was constructed as a second-best pathway to parenting, after biological reproduction had failed, and (2) the Discourse of Redemptive Care, in which adoption was constructed as a way to provide care for children in need so that they could overcome early-life adversity. These two discourses interpenetrated largely through the discursive practice of negating, functioning to refute one another’s legitimacy. A subset of the narratives moved beyond polemic struggle to construct a hybrid meaning of adoption.