The Identity, Adjustment and Achievement of Transracially Adopted Children: a Review and Empirical Report

Abstract

Why should adoption of ‘mixed-race’ children be a social issue of some concern to professionals, and for the black and white communities involved? The reason, as Michael Banton makes clear in a paper earlier in this volume, is that the concept of race is a salient force in British society. In form and intensity, the salience of race differs between Britain and America, but in both cultures the idea of adoption by parents of a child who is of different ‘race’ to them is a controversial issue. Adoption — the process by which a child is permanently cared for by parents other than those he was born to — is a widespread practice in many cultures (Goody, 1969). It is very natural activity. There are no intrinsic reasons why adoption should lead to adverse consequences — such as identity crises-in adopted children. The commonest form of adoption is, in fact, that in which a child is brought up by members of his kinship or clan structure.¹