The Adoption Mentoring Partnership (AMP) matches preadolescent adoptees with adopted college students, prioritizing matches of the same ethnic background. As part of AMP, participants actively discuss issues of ethnicity and adoption with a cohort of mentors over a period of 1 to 3 years in mentor group meetings (MGMs). This study focuses on mentors' perceptions of ethnic identity processes within the context of adoption during their participation in AMP. Thematic analysis is used to analyze two interviews from each of 12 internationally and transracially adopted mentors (8 females, 4 males; average age = 20.4 years; birth countries from Asia or Latin America). Four overarching domains emerged: personal ethnic identity exploration, communication with family members about adoption/ethnicity, social exchanges outside the family, and mentors' perceived personal meanings of ethnicity while participating in AMP. All mentors acknowledged degrees of ambivalence around ethnic identity, yet reported overwhelmingly positive feelings about participating in AMP.
This chapter examines connections among poverty, adoption, and child outcomes in (1) child welfare adoptions, (2) domestic private adoptions, and (3) international adoptions. We discuss ways in which poverty plays a central role in the movement of children from their birth families to adoptive families and argue that adoption is a powerful intervention in the lives of children whose development might have been at risk because of poverty. Because adoption involves a legal relationship, it must be considered within the national context in which the relevant laws and policies are situated. Therefore, this chapter focuses on adoption in the United States. Each of the three primary sections includes a brief overview and history of that type of adoption in the United States followed by a discussion of current policies linking poverty, adoption, and child outcomes. Implications for practice and policy are presented, and future directions for the field are suggested.
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