Predicting Non‐African American Lesbian and Heterosexual Preadoptive Couples' Openness to Adopting an African American Child

• Author: Abbie E. Goldberg,JuliAnna Z. Smith
• Date: 01 July 2009
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2009.00557.x
• Published date: 01 July 2009

A Publication of

the National Council on

Family Relations

ABBIE E. GOLDBERG Clark University

JULIANNA Z. SMITH University of Massachusetts Amherst*

Predicting Non-African American Lesbian and

Heterosexual Preadoptive Couples’ Openness to

Adopting an African American Child

Despite increases in transracial adoption,

African American children remain the least

likely to be adopted. No research has examined

the factors that predict prospective adopters’

willingness to adopt an African American child.

This study used multilevel modeling to examine

predictors of willingness to adopt an African

American child in a sample of 48 lesbian couples

and 65 heterosexual couples. Individuals pur-

suing public adoption were more willing than

those pursuing private domestic adoption, and

heterosexuals pursuing international adoption

were more willing than heterosexuals pursuing

private domestic adoption. In addition, younger

persons, White persons (rather than non-African

American racial minorities), lesbians, and

individuals who perceived their neighborhoods

as more diverse were more likely to be willing

to adopt an African American child.

Transracial adoption has been the subject of

debate in the United States since the 1960s

(Smith, McRoy, Freundlich, & Kroll, 2008).

Department of Psychology, Clark University, 950 Main

Street, Worcester MA 01610 (agoldberg@clarku.edu).

∗Center for Research on Families, Tobin Hall, Amherst MA

01003.

Key Words: adoption, African American, lesbian, multilevel

modeling, race, transracial adoption.

A central concern is whether White parents can

socialize racial minority children to develop

healthy racial identities and to cope with racism

effectively. The National Association of Black

Social Workers has taken a stand against the

placement of African American children, in par-

ticular, in White homes (Smith et al.). From their

perspective, the socialization needs of African

American children are notably different from

those of White children, in that they must be

taught coping strategies for dealing with insti-

tutionalized racism. Another perspective, how-

ever, is that with training, White parents may be

able to develop the skills needed to provide such

socialization (Smith et al.). Although many child

welfare associations agree that race-matching in

adoption is often ideal, they acknowledge that

this ideal cannot always be realized, given that

the number of racial minority children in fos-

ter care exceeds the number of racial minority

adopters, and African American children are

less likely to be adopted than children of other

races (Barth, 1997). Indeed, although African

American children represented 16% of the pop-

ulation under 18 in 2003, they represented 36%

of the foster care population, whereas White

children represented 61% of the population and

38% of children in foster care (USDHHS, 2004).

Alarm over the overrepresentation of African

American children in foster care and concern

that race-matching policies unfairly limit White

adopters’ ability to adopt transracially inf‌luenced

346 Family Relations 58 (July 2009): 346– 360