Author: Katarina Wegar
Subject:
Paper ISBN 0-8135-3842-4
Cloth ISBN 0-8135-3841-6
Pages: 320 pp.

"Wegar's multi-faceted volume brings together many engaging and accessible essays to provide a wide-ranging view of adoption in the United States. This will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in adoption and families."-Wendy S. Simonds, author of Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic

In recent years, different family types have begun demanding recognition to an unprecedented extent. Despite notable changes to our cultural and academic landscapes, however, many types of kinship remain overlooked. Among the most commonly understudied are adoptive families. According to census data, about two and a half percent of children in the United States are adopted. But mere numbers do not begin to indicate the profound impact that these families have on cultural definitions of kinship.

Adoptive Families in a Diverse Society brings together twenty-one prominent scholars to explore the experience, practice, and policy of adoption in North America. While much existing literature tends to stress the potential problems inherent in non-biological kinships, the essays in this volume consider adoptive family life in a broad and balanced context, encompassing the challenges as well as the strengths.

Essays explore our current fascination with genetics, showing how our intense belief that we are produced, shaped, and controlled by our genes has affected the authenticity and value that we credit to adoptive parent/child relations. Other essays look at identity development, community attitudes toward adoption, gay adoptive fathers' experiences, the ways in which single mother adoptive families create kinship, and the ways in which cultural assumptions about race and class operate in the system.

Bringing new perspectives to the topics of kinship, identity, and belonging, this path-breaking book expands more than our understandings of adoptive family life; it urges us to rethink the limits and possibilities of diversity and assimilation in American society.

Katarina Wegar is an associate professor of sociology at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction, by Katarina Wegar
Section I: Imagining Adoptive Families: Ideology, Perceptions, and Practice
1. Adoption and the Culture of Genetic Determinism
Barbara Katz Rothman
2. Family Ideals and the Social Construction of Modern Adoption: A Historical Perspective
Julie Berebitsky
3. Adoption and Public Opinion: The Role of Community Assessments for Social Support and Policy Development in Adoption
Charlene Miall and Karen March
4. Adoption in The Media: In Need Of Editing
Adam Pertman
5. Urchins, Orphans, Monsters, and Victims: Depictions of Adoptees in U.S. Commercial Film
Christine Ward Gailey
Section II: Adoption and the Social Nature of Family, Identity, and Parenthood
6. Adoption and Identity in Social Context
Emily Upshur and Jack Demick
7. Adoptive Fatherhood: Gender, Identity, and Sociocultural Considerations
Ramon Hinojosa, Melanie Sberna, and William Marsiglio
8. Family Values: Adoptive Fatherhood and Gay Men in America
Ellen Lewin
9. Real Mothers: Adoptive Mothers Resisting Marginalization and Re-creating Motherhood
Janet L. Surrey, Betsy Smith, and Mary Watkins
10. "Whatever They Think of Us, We're a Family": Single Mother Adopters
Christine Ward Gailey
Section III: Adoption, Social Disadvantage, and Challenges of Cultural Difference
11. Family Boundaries and Open Adoption
Deborah H. Siegel
12. Adoption, Foster Care, and Guardianship in Minority Families
Sandra T. Azar and Lisa K. Hill
13. Interracial Couples, Multiracial People, and the Color Line in Adoption
Heather Dalmage
14. My Child, My Choice: Parental Well-Being in the Adoption of Children with Developmental Disabilities
Laraine M. Glidden
15. Identity, Race, and Language in Adoption: Ethical Values in the Power of Language
Janet Farrell Smith
16. Adoption and Identity: Nomadic Possibilities for Reconceiving the Self
Mary Watkins
Notes on Contributors
Index