Race, religion, altruism, and the transracial adoption debate: A survey of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish social workers

Abstract

An analysis of 363 questionnaires assessing social worker attitudes toward transracial adoption (TRA)‐i‐e., black children being adopted by white parents‐found interactions between race, religion, and altruism in influencing TRA views. Among white social workers, those who were Catholic and those who were altruistic had more favorable attitudes toward TRA than those who were Protestant and those who were less altruistic. However, altruism was not correlated with TRA score among white Catholics. Among black social workers, no relationship between religion, altruism, and TRA score was found. Religiosity was not related to TRA score for either black or white social workers. Implications of the findings were discussed.

Keywords:

• Religiosity
• transracial adoption
• interracial adoption
• attitude survey