Parenthood and Open Adoption: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

✍ Scribed by Mandi MacDonald (auth.)

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK
• Year: 2016
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 150
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book explores what it is like to be involved in contemporary open adoption, characterised by varying forms of contact with birth relatives, from an adoptive parent point of view.

The author’s fine-grained interpretative phenomenological analysis of adopters’ accounts reveals the complexity of kinship for those whose most significant relationships are made, unmade and permanently altered through adoption. MacDonald distinctively connects adoption to wider sociological theories of relatedness and personal life, and focuses on domestic non-kin adoption of children from state care, including compulsory adoption. The book also addresses current child welfare concerns, and suggestions are made for adoption practice. The book will be of interest to scholars and students with an interest in adoption, social work, child welfare, foster care, family and sociology.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-ix
Introduction....Pages 1-8
Locating the Study of Adoptive Parenthood....Pages 9-32
Parental Entitlement and Proper Parenting: ‘We Are the Parents Now’....Pages 33-65
Public Openness, Difference, and Microaggressions: ‘Different But the Same’....Pages 67-88
Configuring Adoptive Kinship: ‘Close, But Not Too Close’....Pages 89-118
Conclusion: Contested Meanings of Parenthood: ‘As Real as It Gets’....Pages 119-136
Back Matter....Pages 137-142

✦ Subjects

Sociology of Family, Youth and Aging; Children, Youth and Family Policy; Child Well-being; Social Work