TWO OF THE WORLD’S LEADING authorities on adoption, Drs. Rowena Fong and Ruth McRoy, have coedited this impressive volume, which focuses on two significant and controversial contemporary issues: transracial adoption (the domestic adoption of children whose racial or ethnic background does not match that of his or her adoptive parents) and intercountry adoption (the adoption of children across national lines, regardless of race or ethnicity). This work draws on the extensive research experience and broad social work practice experience of coeditors Fong and McRoy, in combination with the expertise contributed to specific chapters by a veritable “who’s who” of other researchers and practitioners who are leading figures in the world of transracial and intercountry adoptions.
Readers will find that the volume is both evidence based and accessible. Authors come from disciplines that include social work, sociology, psychiatry, pediatrics, and psychology (clinical, counseling, developmental) and work in diverse applied settings serving children and their families. The research cited in their chapters reflects the authors’ multidisciplinary backgrounds and the growing interdisciplinary nature of the field of adoption research and practice. The authors present and critique existing research, while noting the significant gaps in our current knowledge base. Students and researchers looking for underresearched topics will find that many opportunities await them.
Chapters focus on the needs of children (e.g., mental health, medical, ethnic identity, developmental, from neurobiological to social) as well as the contexts in which children grow up, especially their families, schools, and communities. Children’s needs and vulnerabilities are explored in the context of current controversies, including child trafficking, rehoming, and child laundering. The needs of adopted persons, adoptive parents, and birth parents are explored through the lens of the well-known seven core issues of adoption, updated by giving attention to the special issues raised by transracial and intercountry adoption.
The volume also attends to issues of policy, because it is policies (whether at the agency, local, state, federal, or international levels) that embody society’s values and provide direction to service providers. Authors help readers navigate the alphabet soup of the many policies that govern adoption practice, including, for example, MEPA (the Multiethnic Placement Act), IEP (Interethnic Adoption Provisions), ASFA (Adoption and Safe Families Act), IAA (Intercountry Adoption Act), ICWA (Indian Child Welfare Act), and HCIA (Hague Intercountry Adoption Act). Readers are provided with context for how these policies arose as well as information about their current implementation and, as seems all too frequently to be the case, unintended consequences.
Fong, McRoy, and their authors portray the contemporary world of adoption in its great complexity. Nevertheless, they also take a pragmatic approach, acknowledging that children have been and will be adopted across racial and national lines and that professionals in the field must develop best practices for care providers and parents so that the needs of these children—who themselves did not choose adoption—can be met. Permeating the volume is their call for an attitude of “cultural humility,” committing to self-reflection and continuing critique of existing social arrangements on behalf of the best interests of children worldwide.
Harold D. Grotevant, Ph.D.
Rudd Family Foundation Chair in Psychology
University of Massachusetts Amherst