The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute just released the executive summary of its recent research study entitled Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity Formation in Adoption. I’m so excited to see this published study because, although the results aren’t really all that new if you already listen to the voices of adult adoptees, this study will reach a much wider audience of adoptive parents. And since they are the ones raising this next generation of adoptees, they are the ones most needing to hear the results.

This study included 468 adult adoptees of all races and ethnicities, with the largest percentage of participants being Korean adoptees (179 respondents). This is THE largest study to date of adult adoptee experiences… most other adoption research studies focused on the adoptive parent experience OR asked questions of young adoptees while their adoptive parents sat in the room.

Way to stifle their voices, y’all.

This time the study asked adult adoptees to answer questions concerning personal demographic information as well as two aspects of identity important to transracial adoptees: adoptive identity and racial/ ethnic identity, both concepts that center around the all-encompassing “who am I?” question.  Who am I as an adoptee, with ties to both my first, biological family AND my adoptive family?  And, for those adopted transracially, who am I as a minority person raised by Caucasian parents?

The results speak for themselves.  For the first time, those within the adoption community can point to valid research that supports the personal anecdotes we’ve heard for these past twenty years.  The study states that adoption issues are important over a lifetime, peaking not during childhood nor adolescence, but later in adulthood.  The importance of adoption did indeed increase during the adolescent years, but it continued to grow during young adulthood for both Korean and Caucasian respondents.  In other words, adoption is a life-long journey… it never ends.

The study also states that racism and discrimination shape the identity of transracial adoptees in a huge way.  The majority of Korean adoptee respondents (78%) stated that they “sometimes/ often/ all the time” experienced racial teasing, but only 22% stated that they faced teasing because they were adopted.  These Korean adoptees faced this racial discrimination in childhood and adolescence “sometimes/ fairly often/ very often” from strangers (80%), classmates (75%), friends (48%) and teachers (39%).  The study also stated that the transracial adoptees who reported less racial teasing came from more diverse communities and more functional families.  Still, 78% of the Korean adoptee participants reported that they considered themselves or wanted to be White as children, although the vast majority grew to identify themselves as Asian-Americans during adulthood.

The study also included a list of activities the adult transracial adoptee participants thought would be helpful in forming their identities as adoptees raised by parents of a different race.  Adoptive parents: sit up and take notice:

Travel to birth country (74% thought it would be helpful)
Attending racially diverse schools (73%)
Having childcare providers, teachers and adult role models of their same race/ ethnicity (73%)
Family travel to culturally significant places (72%)
Reading information on the internet (71%)
Living in a racially diverse neighborhood (70%)
Reading books and articles on adoption (68%)
Cooking ethnic food or dining at restaurants (68%)
Regular contact with people of their same race/ ethnicity (67%)
Exposure to multicultural entertainment (64%)
Take classes to learn the history/ culture of birth country (64%)
Have same-race siblings (63%)
Events by adult adoptees/ adult adoptee organizations (63%)
Support group for adoptees (62%)
Involvement in ethnically diverse religious and/or social groups/ activities (62%)
Culture camp (61%)
Study birth language (59%)
Events sponsored by own ethnic group (55%)
Have traditional objects (dolls, toys, etc) from birth country (49%)
Having contact with birth relatives (47%)
Study martial art, traditional dance, etc (38%)

My husband and I were very fortunate to hear Adam Pertman, the executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, speak about the initial results of this study last year. It profoundly changed the way we parent our daughter, whom we adopted from China in 2005.

I hope and pray that it gives significant food for thought for ALL adoptive parents.