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The assessment of prospective adoptive parents is a complex task for professional social workers. In this study, we examine the structure and function of professional social workers’ follow-up questions in assessment talk with adoption applicants. The analysis shows that adoption assessment through interviews involved a delicate and complex task that was accomplished by using a particular genre of institutional talk. This both invited the applicants’ extended and ‘open-ended’ responses and steered these responses and their development towards the institutionally relevant topics. Detailed interaction analysis demonstrates that social workers used a broad range of question types to steer and guide applicants’ responses, organising talk about specific assessment topics. On the basis of initial open-ended topic initiations and applicants’ responses, the social workers steered topic development by using follow-up moves such as polar questions and clarifying questions that asked for specification, challenged applicants’ ideas, confirmed their knowledge and encouraged self-reflection. These follow-up moves allowed social workers to achieve the progression of talk into relevant areas of investigation and constituted a central and characteristic feature of assessment interviews. We suggest that they allow social workers to accomplish two hybrid institutional goals: i) the assessment of applicants’ suitability and ii) applicants’ preparation for future parenthood.

This study examines how Swedish prospective adoptive parents display parental suitability in assessment interviews with social workers. In adoption assessment interviews, applicants are invited, through question-and-answer sequences, to present their knowledge about adoption-related issues and demonstrate their suitability as future adoptive parents. Adoption applicants are also faced with social workers’ attempts to prepare them for future parenthood with advice and guidance. In this high-stakes interaction, however, guidance might indicate the applicants’ lack of central knowledge or insights, which can have potential face-threatening consequences. The data consist of 36 hours of audio recorded assessment interviews. Using interaction analytical methods, the analysis shows how adoption applicants engage in the multi-layered task of managing social workers’ guidance while also demonstrating parental suitability. Adoption applicants are found to take on the perspectives presented by social workers, and simultaneously to maintain their own standpoint, using a two-step procedure: (i) they eagerly claim their knowledge and align with the social worker, and (ii) they demonstrate their adoption-specific knowledge or personal characteristics that support the presentation of their parental suitability. The findings provide insights into the practice of assessing prospective adoptive parents and contribute to the understanding of how applicants establish their self-presentations as suitable future parents while adjusting to institutional requirements in situ.

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