International and Transracial Adoption: A Communication Research Agenda

Abstract

Families formed through international and transracial adoption manage challenges to family identity as they communicatively negotiate issues of race, culture, class, and gender in necessarily explicit ways. The purpose of this article is twofold. The first goal is to identify specific areas of future communication research that would explicate the processes in which these families engage. The second purpose is to illuminate similar struggles in family forms in which related issues are emerging more gradually. Specific communication-related issues focus on how families develop a sense of internal identity, how the boundaries of a family's identity are managed and defended, how socialization processes are implemented and gender paradoxes are addressed, and how family developmental processes are sustained in the face of certain stage-related challenges accompanying such adoptions. Areas of future research are identified throughout.