Racial Identity and Cultural

Certification For Transracial

Adoptions
Teresa Burrell, Amanda King-Robinson, Spencer Cadet
ETHS 2410
Spring 2016

Transracial Adoption and Cultural

Identity
Two of us have had personal experience concerning transracial adoption and the
challenges families experience.
Racial and cultural identity makes an important foundation in an individuals life. For
a child raised in a transracial environment not recognizing these concepts can leave
damaging and lasting effects.
Through researching scholarly articles, documentaries, and doing interviews we were
able to narrow our focus to addressing racial and cultural identity through education
and certification.

Supporting Documentaries
Our research included scholarly articles, documentaries, and interviews with two mothers of
transracially adopted children.

In the documentary Adopted the parents became offended that their daughter had a desire to connect
with her culture. This led Jennifer, who was a successful woman, into drug use because of her
unresolved feelings and unmet needs.
In the documentary Closer the parents were supportive and encouraging of their daughters need to
embrace her racial identity. Her life was great and she was able to experience closure to the
incongruent feelings that most transracially adopted children face.
The comparisons of these two documentaries showed us just how important it is for adoptive parents to
understand and embrace the cultures their children are from. Both of these women had the same desire;
however their parental reactions had a large impact on how their lives evolved.

Supporting Scholarly Articles

In an article titled Transracial adoption: Current Research and One Mothers Perspective it discusses
how important racial identity education is. The article states, Children who are exposed to their
cultural heritage and diverse racial communities and schools are more likely to develop a positive
sense of racial identity (Lindsey, 2012).
This article raised our awareness of how important it is to teach children about their ethnicity
and culture. If they are aware of their cultural diversity and are raised to be proud of their
ethnic background, they are more likely to grow up and achieve a positive racial identity.

In an article titled White International Transracial Adoption Mothers Reflection on Race it states,
Social work practitioners should not assume that parents racial awareness will evolve helping
parents develop racial awareness and skills to racially socialize their children is not something that
should be left to chance (Crolley-Simic & Vonk, 2011).
This article solidified in our minds how important it is that adoption agencies make it mandatory
for all perspective adoptive parents to become certified in racial and cultural identity before
they are allowed to adopt transracially.

Our Intervention
We have seen from our research that the majority of parents love their children and have a desire to help them
succeed. However, ignorance and misunderstandings concerning a childs need for racial identity and culture can
become a detriment to the individual and the family.

We purpose to change the law requirement from; adopted parents are to informed with regard to a childs
ethnic to: adopted parents are to be certified with regard to a childs ethnic, religious, cultural, and
racial heritage (Utah Government Administrative Services, 2016).
We would need the assistance of a lobbyist to represent our needs and ideas to government officials. Once
passed we would need to hire individuals to produce and maintain a website that includes all necessary
classes and tests for certification of perspective parents.
Our goal is to educate parents throughout the state with a series of online videos that would educate
parents in racial identity, white privilege, and ways to implement the adopted childs cultural experiences
into the life of their family.
We expect the average cost of this program to be $200-500 thousand dollars to produce the online class.
This cost would be recouped through a charge to the perspective parents of $29-49 dollars to take the
online course and tests needed to be certified for transracial adoption.

Resistance to the Intervention

There are three basic areas of resistance that we can see.

Government official would need to find this issue serious

enough to warrant certification.
Adoption agency may not be happy about another
requirement they need to put in place before adoption can
occur
The perspective parents might not recognize the need to
become certified in racial and cultural identity

Support for the Intervention

The support we feel we will receive will come from many different sources. Some of
those include:
Adults who were transracially adopted that are willing to share their
experiences and feelings about ethnic identity development.

Parents of transracially adopted children that have seen the struggles their
children have gone through.

-One mother we interviewed told us that she feels it is important to have the education
because even though she as a mother is colorblind didnt mean the world was colorblind, and
she wanted to give her daughter to opportunity to associate with others of her own race.

Social workers and teachers that have been taught and understand the
importance of racial and cultural identity development.

Impact of Our Intervention

We believe that as parents become educated, it is expected that children

and families of transracial adoptions will be better able to develop a racial
and cultural identity. This will provide a secure foundation of a
multicultural family experience, and both parents and children will be
able to withstand the prejudices and injustices that exist in our country.

References
Crolley-Simic, J., & Vonk, M. E. (2011, May). White International Transracial Adoptive Mothers'
Reflections on Race. Child & Family Social Work, 16(2), 169-178. Retrieved April 2, 2016, from
eds.a.ebscohost.com.libprox1.slcc.edu

http://

Lee, B. (Director). (2013). "Adopted" [Motion Picture].

Lindsey, B. (2012, October 27). Transracial Adoption: Current Research and One Mother's Perspective.
International Journal of Childbirth Education, 27(4), 55-60. Retrieved April 2, 2016, from
http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/libprox1.slcc.edu
Tucker, B. (Director). (2016). "Closure" the documentary [Motion Picture].
Utah Government Administrative Services. (2016, March 1). UTAH ADMINISTRATIVE CODE. Retrieved from
Utah Department of Administrative Services Division of Administrative Rules:
http://www.rules.utah.gov/publicat/code/r501/r501-07.htm