The discursive practices of adoptive parents in two online transnational adoption forums (2006-2008) and observations of five international adoption workshops suggest that what Heather Jacobson described as "culture keeping", the cultural socialization of children that retains a sense of native group identity, is more aptly characterized as…

In this article, the authors argue that to understand the very low incidence of outside-of-marriage childbearing in contemporary Japan one needs to take into account perceptions of all possible solutions to a premarital pregnancy: marriage, abortion, and childbearing outside wedlock. To demonstrate the particular impact of these perceptions in…

The United States is one of the major baby-receiving countries in the world. Relatively little research has focused on why there is such a high demand for intercountry adoption. Using in-depth qualitative interviews with adoptive parents, the authors explored the reasons why Americans prefer to adopt foreign-born children instead of adopting…

In this article, we use feminist theories of the state to examine why the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has had relatively little impact on increasing men's caregiving after the birth or adoption of a child. An analysis of witness testimonies and of the language of the proposed bill at three different stages of its development revealed that…

The majority of U.S. women who have abortions (61%) have children. This exploratory study analyzes qualitative information from 38 women obtaining abortions to examine how issues of motherhood influenced their decisions to terminate their pregnancies. Women in the sample had abortions because of the material responsibilities of motherhood, such as…

Although bicultural competence has been viewed as an advantage for immigrants and other ethnic minorities in American society, we do not know whether bicultural socialization is similarly advantageous for children in families formed through international, transracial adoption. This study examines what factors enable adoptive Chinese children to…

Examined adoption actions and attitudes of 16 childless women, and husbands of 14 of the women, who applied for or underwent in vitro fertilization (IVF). Found that IVF and adoption were sought concurrently by most and that wives were more in favor of adoption than were husbands. (Author/NB)

In this article, community assessments of support for three levels of open adoption are examined, including two types of mediated adoption, fully disclosed adoption, and confidential adoption. Combining telephone survey data from a Canada-wide random sample of 706 respondents with 82 qualitative interviews, the authors report on community…

Adoption has been the purview of the social work field but has received little empirical evaluation by other family scholars. Using the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, 378 men currently cohabiting with or married to a woman with her own children are evaluated to determine whether the respondent's biological children affect the odds of…

Given that the community is an important stakeholder in adoption, community viewpoints (N=150) on open adoption, birth reunions, and disclosure of confidential information are investigated. Fixed and open-ended questions were used. Comparisons are made to similar research on the adoption triangle. Community involvement in public-policy formation…

Tested whether there is social consensus about how stepparents should and will parent and whether stepparent roles are perceived as similar to biological and adoptive parent roles. College students (n=240) thought that stepparents were less obligated and less likely than biological and adoptive parents to engage in supportive parental behaviors…

Based on qualitative information from in-depth interviews and quantitative data from a survey of 425 adoptive families conducted in summer 2001 in rural China, this study attempts to explain the social and demographic patterns of adoption and investigate the roles of the State and families in adoption processes in contemporary rural China. Within…

Examined gender differences in adolescents' personal views about pregnancy resolution and family formation. Surveyed adolescents (n=577) using vignette involving unplanned pregnancy. Findings showed similar percentages of males and females preferred abortion and adoption as strategies for handling pregnancy, but females were more likely to select…

The author examined 65 cases in which grandparents successfully acquired court-ordered visitation with their grandchildren to understand how courts shape family development and how social scientists might support families who are engaged in legal disputes. Using grounded theory methods, two categories explained grandparents' success at acquiring…

The present study was conducted to investigate differences in nurturant fathering, father involvement, and young adult psychosocial functioning among small samples of three nontraditional family forms. A total of 168 young-adult university students from three family forms (27 adoptive, 22 adoptive stepfather, 119 nonadoptive stepfather) completed…