Waubonsee Community College

Adoption, identity, and kinship, the debate over sealed birth records, Katarina Wegar

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 139-158) and index

index present

non fiction

Adoption, identity, and kinship

bibliography

34576664

Katarina Wegar

the debate over sealed birth records

In this thoughtful book, sociologist Katarina Wegar offers a new perspective on adoption and the search debate, placing them within a social context. She argues that Americans who are embroiled in adoption controversies have failed to understand how much the debate, adoption research, and the experience of adoption itself are affected by persistent social beliefs that adopted children are different from and somehow inferior to children reared by their biological familiesWegar begins by considering the historical and legal development of adoption and of sealed-records policies, showing how kinship ideology, the helping professions, and gender issues intersect to frame adoption policies and the ongoing debate. Drawing on articles in social work and mental health journals, activist newsletters, and autobiographies by search activists, as well as on popular images of adoption portrayed in talk shows and other media, she analyzes the rhetoric to reveal the unconscious biases that exist. She concludes with a discussion of ways in which adoption reformers can avoid perpetuating harmful and confining images of those who participate in adoption

Ch. 1. Introduction: Adoption and the Difference Dilemma -- Ch. 2. Adoption, Inequality, and the Law: The Origins of the Sealed Records Controversy -- Ch. 3. Adoption Research: Trends and Perspectives -- Ch. 4. Debating Sealed Records: The Social Construction of Search Narratives -- Ch. 5. Adoption in Popular Culture: Similar Yet Different -- Ch. 6. Conclusion: Adoption in Context