Place, Distance and Relational Dynamics: Acknowledgement of Birth Country in Storybooks about Girls Adopted from China

• In Event: 115 - Section on Asia and Asian America Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 05. Racial, Ethnic, and Class Meanings

Abstract

The purpose of this content analysis study was to examine whether acknowledgement of birth/adoptive country was evident in children’s picture storybooks about girls adopted from China. Such books matter because adoptees (a) can remember the adoptive stories read to them in early childhood and (b) carry these stories into adulthood as part of their identities (Grice, 2005; Jue-Steuck, 2011). The authors identified 38 books (containing 40 stories) written at the preschool-kindergarten level which portrayed Chinese girls adopted by US families. The authors engaged in directional coding (e.g., Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) and coded books independently. Interrater agreement was approximately 90%. Across books, the results revealed that there was description of (a) personal identification that linked adoptees to China and (b) distance/travel between China and the US. These descriptions might have some positive implications for adoptive family relationships and biethnic/binational identity. For example, the US adults’ willingness to adopt a child from China might represent a significant degree of parental investment (e.g., Gill, 2012; Louie, 2009; Suter, Reyes & Ballard, 2011). Similarly, the stories can help adopted children begin to understand the distance between their birth and adoptive countries (and likelihood of return travel to China). Such understanding might be salient to children’s perspectives on birth parents and the development of bicultural/transnational identities (e.g., Evans, 2008; Ponte, Wang & Fan, 2010; Traver, 2009). Suggestions for future research are offered.

Authors

• Jacki Fitzpatrick

• Erin Kositna-Ritchey, Texas Tech University