Strengthening Qualitative Research: Determining Identity in International Adoptions

加强定性研究：确定国际收养中的身份

• 批准号: 0838808
• 负责人: Vilna Bashi Treitler
• 金额: $ 2.71万
• 依托单位: CUNY Baruch College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-02-21 至 2010-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0838808&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Strengthening; Qualitative; Research; Determining; Identity

SES 0601801Vilna BashiRutgers UniversityOver the last 10 years, the number of adoptions of foreign-born children completed by American parents has increased tenfold over a wide number of countries, to the point where such adoptions number over 20,000 foreign-born children each year. Prospective parents tend to be racially white, professional class, and wealthier than average. This project is designed to answer two research questions regarding this surging phenomenon. The first is: How do agents adopting American parents and international adoption agencies make decisions about how they racially identify foreign born adopted children and racially represent the nations from which the children come? The answer is not predictable from the large and growing literature on what has been variously called racial formation, racialization, and ethnoracial assignment. These writings reinforce the idea that race is a system constructed on a premise that some people are more deserving of privilege and preference than others, but they also suggest that racial advantage and disadvantage is not doled out in a manner fixed for all time. Racial privilege, instead, evolves with changing political and economic circumstances. Much of this work is historically based, using legal and historical analysis to re-tell the story of this historical change over time. The project differs in that it attempts to capture a contemporary and ongoing racialization process. A second question asks: What is the relationship between gender and race in the international adoption process? This search for the foreign-born can be said to be racially motivated, as scholars have suggested that American race and class dynamics have created a "shortage" of desirable This project studies a more contemporary manifestation of the racial assignment process by looking at the ways agents involved in placing foreign-born children in American homes construct those children's races, and help to set their racial identities, and to examine the relationship between gender and race in these processes. The principal investigator will use qualitative research methods to study the racial assigning processes in three sites in which they occur. The first site focuses on adoption agencies' representations, via a content analysis of the print materials they provide to prospective parents, and through their websites. A second site of research examines the growing cultural dialog on international adoption as expressed in advice books on "how to" undertake an intercountry adoption, raise a child different from oneself, and ensure your child learns his/her "culture." There is also a nascent but expanding children's literature on international adoption meant to comfort children who are foreign-born and/or explain the adoption to them as they grow. The PI will use content analysis in order to examine how print and visual media and other sites for advice in international adoptive childrearing (e.g. cultural camps) contribute to or hope to influence the racialization of these children. Finally, the PI will interview parents who have adopted foreign-born children to understand parents' thoughts and processes about the (inter-) racial aspects of international adoption, and learn about their practices in raising their foreign-born child. The broader impacts of this work include training undergraduate and graduate students. Results will be disseminated widely and the data will be made available to other researchers interested in replication and reanalysis. This data availability contributes to strengthening qualitative research methods.

SES 0601801维尔纳巴希罗格斯大学在过去的10年里，美国父母收养外国出生的孩子的数量在许多国家增加了10倍，每年收养的外国出生的孩子超过20，000人。未来的父母往往是种族白色，专业阶层，比平均水平富裕。这个项目旨在回答关于这种涌动现象的两个研究问题。第一个是：收养美国父母的代理人和国际收养机构如何决定他们如何从种族上识别外国出生的被收养儿童，并从种族上代表儿童来自的国家？答案是不可预测的，从大量和不断增长的文献中，关于种族形成、种族化和民族分配的各种说法。这些著作强化了这样一种观点，即种族是一个建立在某些人比其他人更值得享有特权和优惠的前提下的系统，但它们也表明，种族的优势和劣势并不是以一种固定的方式发放的。相反，种族特权随着政治和经济环境的变化而演变。这部作品的大部分都是以历史为基础的，使用法律的和历史分析来重新讲述随着时间的推移这一历史变化的故事。该项目的不同之处在于，它试图捕捉当代和正在进行的种族化进程。第二个问题是：在国际收养过程中，性别和种族之间的关系是什么？这种对外国出生的孩子的寻找可以说是出于种族动机，因为学者们认为，美国的种族和阶级动态已经造成了理想的“短缺”。这个项目研究了种族分配过程的一个更现代的表现形式，通过观察参与将外国出生的孩子安置在美国家庭的代理人如何构建这些孩子的种族，并帮助确定他们的种族身份，并研究在这些过程中性别与种族之间的关系。主要研究者将使用定性研究方法，研究种族分配过程中发生的三个网站。第一个网站侧重于收养机构的陈述，通过对它们提供给未来父母的印刷材料进行内容分析，并通过它们的网站。第二个研究地点调查了关于跨国收养的日益增长的文化对话，这些对话在关于“如何”进行跨国收养、抚养与自己不同的孩子以及确保你的孩子学习他/她的“文化”的建议书中得到了表达。“还有一种关于国际收养的新生但不断扩大的儿童文学，旨在安慰在外国出生的儿童和/或在他们成长过程中向他们解释收养问题。PI将使用内容分析，以研究印刷和视觉媒体以及其他在国际收养儿童抚养方面提供咨询的网站（例如文化营地）如何促成或希望影响这些儿童的种族化。最后，PI将采访收养外国出生儿童的父母，以了解父母对国际收养的（跨）种族方面的想法和过程，并了解他们抚养外国出生儿童的做法。这项工作的更广泛影响包括培训本科生和研究生。 研究结果将广泛传播，数据将提供给其他有兴趣复制和重新分析的研究人员。这种数据的可获得性有助于加强定性研究方法。