Download or read book Unequal Motherhoods and the Adoption of Asian Children written by Jungyun Gill and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-12-13 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores a deeply personal aspect of globalization: the adoption of Asian children by white Americans. It is based on dozens of interviews with adoptive mothers and adoption social workers, nearly two hundred letters and essays written by Korean birth mothers who put their children up for adoption, and field work at an adoption agency in South Korea. It also includes analyses and explanations of U.S. and South Korean governments’ social characteristics and policies regarding adoptions and how relations between nations have affected international adoption. The book focuses on whether the commonly held notion that adoptions are to serve children’s welfare and their best interests has tended to render gendered aspects of international adoptions invisible. Factors such as gender inequality, social control of women’s reproductive power, patriarchic family structure, and social beliefs concerning womanhood and motherhood that affect international adoptions are revealed in this book. The multiple ways in which adoptive, birth, and foster mothers experience gender oppression from their different social positions of class, race, and nationality are explored and the interdependencies and inequalities of the motherhoods of these three groups of women are brought to light.
Download or read book Social Problems and Social Movements written by James DeFronzo and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-03-20 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intended as the primary text for a social problems course, DeFronzo and Gill’s Social Problems and Social Movements stresses the need for collective action and social movements to solve social problems. Both instructors and students will find this a useful framework in which to view today’s most pressing social issues. Chapter 1 introduces the topic of social problems. Chapter 2 explains how social movements address social problems and describes sociological explanations for the development of social movements. Chapter 3 describes the power frameworks that participants in social movements must deal with in order to achieve success. Each following chapter presents overviews of social problems and provides examples of how working together can bring about positive change. Social Movements and Special Topics boxes provide information on aspects of specific social problems as well as how people organize and work together to solve them.
Download or read book Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother written by Xinran and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in Great Britain in 2010 by Chatto & Windus.
Download or read book The Journal of Korean Studies Volume 21 Number 1 Spring 2016 written by Donald Baker and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-05-16 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The University of Washington-Korea Studies Program, in collaboration with Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, is proud to publish the Journal of Korean Studies.
Download or read book Global Families Inequality and Transnational Adoption written by Riitta Högbacka and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-01-18 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at the simultaneous processes of making and un-making of families that are part of the adoption practice. Whereas most studies on transnational adoption concentrate on the adoptive family, the author identifies not only the happy occasion when a family gains a child, but also the sorrow and loss of the child to its family of origin. Situating transnational adoption in the context of the Global North-South divide, Hogbacka investigates the devastating effects of unequal life chances and asymmetrical power relations on the adoption process and on the mothers whose children are adopted. Based on unique primary material gathered in in-depth interviews with South African families of origin and Finnish adoptive families, the book investigates the decision-making processes of both sets of parents and the encounters between them. The first mothers' narratives are juxtaposed with those of the adopters and of the adoption social workers who act on the principles of the wider adoption system. Concluding with a critique of the Global Northism that exemplifies current practices, Hogbacka sketches the contours of a more just approach to transnational adoption that would shatter rather than perpetuate inequality. The book can also be read as an expose of the consequences of current inequalities for poor families. Global Families, Inequality and Transnational Adoption will be of interest to students and scholars of adoption studies, family and kinship, sociology, anthropology, social work and development.
Download or read book The Globalization of Motherhood written by Wendy Chavkin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-09-13 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brings together research from the Global North and the Global South to illuminate how contemporary motherhood is changed by the processes of globalization.
Download or read book Reassembling Motherhood written by Yasmine Ergas and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The word “mother” traditionally meant a woman who bears and nurtures a child. In recent decades, changes in social norms and public policy as well as advances in reproductive technologies and the development of markets for procreation and care have radically expanded definitions of motherhood. But while maternity has become a matter of choice for more women, the freedom to make reproductive decisions is unevenly distributed. Restrictive policies, socioeconomic disadvantages, cultural mores, and discrimination force some women into motherhood and prevent others from caring for their children. Reassembling Motherhood brings together contributors from across the disciplines to consider the transformation of motherhood as both an identity and a role. It examines how the processes of bearing and rearing a child are being restructured as reproductive labor and care work change around the globe. The authors examine issues such as artificial reproductive technologies, surrogacy, fetal ultrasounds, adoption, nonparental care, and the legal status of kinship, showing how complex chains of procreation and childcare have simultaneously generated greater liberty and new forms of constraint. Emphasizing the tension between the liberalization of procreation and care on the one hand, and the limits to their democratization due to race, class, and global inequality on the other, the book highlights debates that have emerged as these multifaceted changes have led to both the fragmentation and reassembling of motherhood.
Download or read book Culture Keeping written by Heather Jacobson and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the early 1990s, close to 250,000 children born abroad have been adopted into the United States. Nearly half of these children have come from China or Russia. Culture Keeping: White Mothers, International Adoption, and the Negotiation of Family Difference offers the first comparative analysis of these two popular adoption programs. Heather Jacobson examines these adoptions by focusing on a relatively new social phenomenon, the practice by international adoptive parents, mothers in particular, of incorporating aspects of their children's cultures of origin into their families' lives. "Culture keeping" is now standard in the adoption world, though few adoptive parents, the majority of whom are white and native-born, have experience with the ethnic practices of their children's homelands prior to adopting. Jacobson follows white adoptive mothers as they navigate culture keeping: from their motivations, to the pressures and constraints they face, to the content of their actual practices concerning names, food, toys, travel, cultural events, and communities of belonging. Through her interviews, she explores how women think about their children, their families, and themselves as mothers as they labor to construct or resist ethnic identities for their children, who may be perceived as birth children (because they are white) or who may be perceived as adopted (because of racial difference). The choices these women make about culture, Jacobson argues, offer a window into dominant ideas of race and the "American Family," and into how social differences are conceived and negotiated in the United States.
Download or read book The Imprint of Another Life written by Margaret Homans and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Imprint of Another Life: Adoption Narratives and Human Possibilityaddresses a series of questions about common beliefs about adoption. Underlying these beliefs is the assumption that human qualities are innate and intrinsic, an assumption often held by adoptees and their families, sometimes at great emotional cost. This book explores representations of adoption—transracial, transnational, and domestic same-race adoption—that reimagine human possibility by questioning this assumption and conceiving of alternatives. Literary scholar Margaret Homans examines fiction making’s special relationship to themes of adoption, an “as if” form of family making, fabricated or fictional instead of biological or “real.” Adoption has tended to generate stories rather than uncover bedrock truths. Adoptive families are made, not born; in the words of novelist Jeanette Winterson, “adopted children are self-invented because we have to be.” In attempting to recover their lost histories and identities, adoptees create new stories about themselves. While some believe that adoptees cannot be whole unless they reconnect with their origins, others believe that privileging biology reaffirms hierarchies (such as those of race) that harm societies and individuals. Adoption is lived and represented through an irresolvable tension between belief in the innate nature of human traits and belief in their constructedness, contingency, and changeability. The book shows some of the ways in which literary creation, and a concept of adoption as a form of creativity, manages this tension. The texts examined include fiction (e.g., classic novels such as Silas Marner, What Maisie Knew, and Beloved); memoirs by adoptees, adoptive parents, and birthmothers; drama, documentary films, advice manuals, social science writing; and published interviews with adoptees, parents, and birth parents. Along the way the book tracks the quests of adoptees who, whether or not they meet their original families, must construct their own stories rather than finding them; follows transnational adoptees as they return, hopes held high, to Korea and China; looks over the shoulders of a generation of girls adopted from China as they watch Disney’s iconic Mulan, with its alluring story of destiny written on the skin; and listens to birthmothers as they struggle to tell painful secrets held for decades. This book engages in debates within adoption studies, women’s and gender studies, transnational studies, and ethnic studies; it will appeal to literary scholars and critics, including specialists in memoir or narrative theory, and to general readers interested in adoption and in race.
Download or read book Parenting Matters written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2016-11-21 with total page 525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.
Download or read book Transnational Adoption written by Sara K. Dorow and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an ethnographic study of China/U.S. adoption, the largest contemporary intercountry adoption program.
Download or read book White Parents Black Children written by Darron T. Smith and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2011-11-16 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: White Parents, Black Children looks at the difficult issue of race in transracial adoptions—particularly the adoption by white parents of children from different racial and ethnic groups. Despite the long history of troubled and fragile race relations in the United States, some people believe the United States may be entering a post-racial state where race no longer matters, citing evidence like the increasing number of transracial adoptions to make this point. However, White Parents, Black Children argues that racism remains a factor for many children of transracial adoptions. Black children raised in white homes are not exempt from racism, and white parents are often naive about the experiences their children encounter. This book aims to bring to light racial issues that are often difficult for families to talk about, focusing on the racial socialization white parents provide for their transracially adopted children about what it means to be black in contemporary American society. Blending the stories of adoptees and their parents with extensive research, the authors discuss trends in transracial adoptions, challenge the concept of 'colorblind' America, and offer suggestions to help adoptees develop a healthy sense of self.
Download or read book Spirited Crossings written by Sara Kathryn Dorow and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Families We Need written by Erin Raffety and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2022-11-11 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in the remote, mountainous Guangxi Autonomous Region and based on ethnographic fieldwork, Families We Need traces the movement of three Chinese foster children, Dengrong, Pei Pei, and Meili, from the state orphanage into the humble, foster homes of Auntie Li, Auntie Ma, and Auntie Huang. Traversing the geography of Guangxi, from the modern capital Nanning where Pei Pei and Meili reside, to the small farming village several hours away where Dengrong is placed, this ethnography details the hardships of social abandonment for disabled children and disenfranchised, older women in China, while also analyzing the state’s efforts to cope with such marginal populations and incorporate them into China’s modern future. The book argues that Chinese foster families perform necessary, invisible service to the Chinese state and intercountry adoption, yet the bonds they form also resist such forces, exposing the inequalities, privilege, and ableism at the heart of global family making.
Download or read book The Violence of Love written by Kit W. Myers and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2025-01-28 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. The Violence of Love challenges the narrative that adoption is a solely loving act that benefits birth parents, adopted individuals, and adoptive parents--a narrative that is especially pervasive with transracial and transnational adoptions. Using interdisciplinary methods of archival, legal, and discursive analysis, Kit W. Myers comparatively examines the adoption of Asian, Black, and Native American children by White families in the United States. He shows how race has been constructed relationally to mark certain homes, families, and nations as spaces of love, freedom, and better futures--in contrast to others that are not--and argues that violence is attached to adoption in complex ways. Propelled by different types of love, such adoptions attempt to transgress biological, racial, cultural, and national borders established by traditional family ideals. Yet they are also linked to structural, symbolic, and traumatic forms of violence. The Violence of Love confronts this discomforting reality and rethinks theories of family to offer more capacious understandings of love, kinship, and care.
Download or read book Adoption and Multiculturalism written by Jenny Heijun Wills and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-09-11 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adoption and Multiculturalism features the voices of international scholars reflecting transnational and transracial adoption and its relationship to notions of multiculturalism. The essays trouble common understandings about who is being adopted, who is adopting, and where these acts are taking place, challenging in fascinating ways the tidy master narrative of saviorhood and the concept of a monolithic Western receiving nation. Too often the presumption is that the adoptive and receiving country is one that celebrates racial and ethnic diversity, thus making it superior to the conservative and insular places from which adoptees arrive. The volume’s contributors subvert the often simplistic ways that multiculturalism is linked to transnational and transracial adoption and reveal how troubling multiculturalism in fact can be. The contributors represent a wide range of disciplines, cultures, and connections in relation to the adoption constellation, bringing perspectives from Europe (including Scandinavia), Canada, the United States, and Australia. The book brings together the various methodologies of literary criticism, history, anthropology, sociology, and cultural theory to demonstrate the multifarious and robust ways that adoption and multiculturalism might be studied and considered. Edited by three transnational and transracial adoptees, Adoption and Multiculturalism: Europe, the Americas, and the Pacific offers bold new scholarship that revises popular notions of transracial and transnational adoption as practice and phenomenon.
Download or read book Adoption and Mothering written by Frances Joan Latchford and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adoption and Mothering is an international and interdisciplinary collection that examines birthmothers and adoptive mothers; it investigates debate, discourse, and the politics of adoption that surrounds them and impacts contemporary notions of motherhood as biological and non-biological kin in North American contexts. Written by authors from disciplinary perspectives in the humanities and social sciences, its essays offer critical perspectives on adoption and mothering that challenge institutionalized ideas, assumptions, pathologies, and psychologies that are used to interpret birthmothers and adoptive mothers. Its authors interrogate questions of race, gender, disability, class and sexuality as they relate to the experience, identity, and subjectivity of 'mothers' who are marked by the institution of adoption. It investigates historical and contemporary themes, language, law, and practices that concern mothering in closed and open adoption systems, and in transracial and transnational adoption. It critically explores the expectations, scrutiny, and liminality that birthmothers and adoptive mothers often face. It looks at imperatives that mothers be the keepers of culture, potential adversaries, and borderland mothers. In effect, it creates a productive and exciting dialogue between birthmothers and adoptive mothers to challenge traditional notions of motherhood.
