![Sample our Health and Social Care journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5938/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Health-Social-Care.jpg"})
Abstract
Intercountry adoption has been, and continues to be, a popular method of family formation worldwide, as well as a means of providing homes for children who would otherwise remain parentless. The popularity of this social welfare practice suggests that countless families continue to face the challenges of raising children whose ethnicities derive from two different ethnic backgrounds. Yet, virtually no research exists on the development of a bicultural ethnic identity in intercountry adoption. Instead, research has focused on the importance of birth-culture socialization, or the lack thereof. Faced with too little direct research on the subject, this paper synthesizes and critically reviews literature from the ethnic socialization, biracial, acculturation, and adoption fields. The aim was twofold: (1) extrapolate key elements of the literature that inform on the development of biculturalism in intercountry adoptions; and (2) identify gaps in the literature. Suggestions for future research and practice are offered.
Notes
1. The term color-blind has been used to describe parents who minimize racial or ethnic differences in their children, in favor of nonracial identifiers, such as personality traits or skills when describing their children. See CitationMcRoy and Zurcher (1983) for more on this phenomenon in TRA, and CitationNeville, Lilly, Duran, Lee, and Browne (2000) for information on measuring color-blind attitudes generally.