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Help Further the Cause of Adoption Research?

White parents who have adopted Asian children are being sought for a research study about adoptive families conducted by the University of Maryland at College Park. The survey is being conducted by a professor and a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at the University. The study, approved by the University’s Institutional Research Board (IBR) aims to help researchers learn more about international adoptive families and about the challenges faced by White parents in raising a child of a different race/culture.

This is a one-time survey, completed on-line, which takes about 20-40 minutes to complete.

I completed my survey this evening. Most questions asked whether I strongly agreed, moderately agreed, slightly agreed, was uncertain, slightly disagreed, moderately disagreed or strongly disagreed with certain statements. These included the importance of providing children with cultural opportunities, such as learning about their country of origin’s history and customs, finding professional providers of my child’s race, finding dolls and books related to my child’s race, learning about the history of their race in the United States, developing relationships with children of their heritage, developing relationships with adults of their heritage, learning the language of their country of origin, learning typical values of their culture of origin, discussing stereotypes others may have of their race and prejudice children may encounter.

I was also asked to rank how confident I felt in my ability to provide such experiences, and then how often I actually had provided such activities—for example, associating with adults of my child’s birth culture, celebrating cultural holidays, speaking about racial issues.

Parents may be surprised to see a section on their experiences and comfort level interacting with African-American individuals and groups. I think the survey is trying to get general information on how parents think about race in general by making the questions a bit more removed from thinking about their own child. Another reason may be to separate comfort levels interacting with those of other races from interacting with adults of other races where a language barrier is present.

Responses are confidential and no identifying information is taken. (The survey tool website itself, which is known as “Survey Monkey” and is not affiliated with the University, does invite all survey-takers to register at the end of completing any of its surveys. I recommend against this; it is useful only if you yourself have a survey to conduct and it does ask for personal information.)

Individual results are not compiled; but in the future we should be able to see the aggregate results. I’m always curious!

Below is a link to the survey, or you can contact one of the individuals listed below.
http://www.surveymonkey.com
Questions about the survey may be addressed to the individuals whose contact information is shown below:
Contact Information:

Maria Berbery, Doctoral Student
University of Maryland Department of Psychology
1147 Biology-Psychology Building
College Park, MD 20742
mberbery@psyc.umd.edu

Dr. Karen O’Brien, Professor
University of Maryland Department of Psychology
1147 Biology-Psychology Building
College Park, MD 20782
kobrien@psyc.umd.edu

Please see these related blogs:

Self-Reflection as Self-Motivation

Are You a Member of the Mad Mom Club?

Preparing to Parent Kids of a Different Race

This entry was posted in About Adoption and tagged , , , by Pam Connell. Bookmark the permalink.

About Pam Connell

Pam Connell is a mother of three by both birth and adoption. She has worked in education, child care, social services, ministry and journalism. She resides near Seattle with her husband Charles and their three children. Pam is currently primarily a Stay-at-Home-Mom to Patrick, age 8, who was born to her; Meg, age 6, and Regina, age 3, who are biological half-sisters adopted from Korea. She also teaches preschoolers twice a week and does some writing. Her activities include volunteer work at school, church, Cub Scouts and a local Birth to Three Early Intervention Program. Her hobbies include reading, writing, travel, camping, walking in the woods, swimming and scrapbooking. Pam is a graduate of Seattle University and Gonzaga University. Her fields of study included journalism, religious education/pastoral ministry, political science and management. She served as a writer and editor of the college weekly newspaper and has been Program Coordinator of a Family Resource Center and Family Literacy Program, Volunteer Coordinator at a church, Religion Teacher, Preschool Teacher, Youth Ministry Coordinator, Camp Counselor and Nanny. Pam is an avid reader and continuing student in the areas of education, child development, adoption and public policy. She is eager to share her experiences as a mother by birth and by international adoption, as a mother of three kids of different learning styles and personalities, as a mother of kids of different races, and most of all as a mom of three wonderful kids!