| I am deeply troubled by what currently passes for | | | | year has not been comprehensively compiled since |
| research in adoption. View all research in adoption | | | | 1992. While there are reporting mechanisms for |
| with a critical eye and look for two serious issues: | | | | foster care and international adoptions, states are |
| POSITIONING | | | | not legally required to record the number of private, |
| Positioning: this is a term that comes from | | | | domestic adoptions." |
| ethnographic research and asks the question, "What's | | | | The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute also |
| it to you?" In the case of adoption, it means, "Hey | | | | informs us that adoption data is not collected at the |
| researcher, are you adopted? Are you an adoptive | | | | state level either in the U.S., since this has not been |
| parent? What's your personal investment in your | | | | mandated since 2001. The next time you read an |
| research?" Be wary of research in which the authors | | | | article about adoption in the U.S. written after 2001 |
| do not specifically state their involvement in adoption. | | | | and it states that Americans are only interested in |
| If left unaddressed, it often means they have no | | | | adopting healthy white infants, be aware that there is |
| personal involvement and thus are not privy to the | | | | no reliable data collected at the state or national level |
| inner workings of adoption. Research like this is rife | | | | to support that assertion. It is merely conjecture. |
| with holes-questions unasked and opportunities for | | | | Nothing more than someone's opinion or guess. |
| discovery missed. | | | | WHAT CAN I DO? |
| Kim Park Nelson, in the book Outsiders Within: Writing | | | | If your cable has gone out and you find yourself, late |
| on Transracial Adoption (2006) writes, "I am critical | | | | at night, hungry to read adoption research with some |
| of researchers who do not reveal their personal | | | | meaning, check out the work of: |
| stake in their research," (p. 90). Kirsten Hoo-Mi Sloth, | | | | - Jane Jeong Trenka. |
| an adult adoptee, echoes this sentiment saying, | | | | - Julia Chinyere Oparah. |
| "...research influences-or should influence-adoption | | | | - John Raible. |
| policy and practice. Research results interpret | | | | - Sun Yung Shin. |
| adoptees' realities. They inform our assumptions | | | | - Kirsten Hoo-Mi Sloth. |
| about what is right and what is wrong in | | | | These authors and researchers are adult adoptees |
| adoption...We cannot leave this task to nonadopted | | | | and while they will suffer the same dearth of data as |
| academics alone," (p. 253). | | | | all researchers do, at least they can offer us the |
| LACK OF DATA | | | | view from inside the adoption triad. I realize I am |
| The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute has been | | | | privileging the work of adult adoptees. Theirs is an |
| calling for adoption data to be collected for years. | | | | important voice, a voice long unheard in our |
| Here is what they say about the unavailability of | | | | community. Let us welcome them and listen carefully |
| national adoption statistics in the United States (from | | | | so that we might better parent our own children. |
| their website): "The total number of adoptions each | | | | |