Assessing Community Connectedness and Self-Regard in a Mid-Life Follow-up of British Chinese Adoptions

Citation

Rushton A, Grant M, Simmonds J & Feast J (2012) Assessing Community Connectedness and Self-Regard in a Mid-Life Follow-up of British Chinese Adoptions. Adoption & Fostering, 36 (3-4), pp. 62-72. https://doi.org/10.1177/030857591203600307

Abstract
In the field of international adoption there has been a long-standing concern that transracially adopted people experience social dislocation from both their communities of origin and the communities in which they grew up. Alan Rushton, Margaret Grant, John Simmonds and Julia Feast of the British Chinese Adoption Study team explore this notion in relation to a sample of 72 ex-orphanage, Hong Kong-born women adopted into British families in the 1960s. The authors report on how the women choose to identify themselves in mid life. The article describes the development and use of specially devised questionnaires to explore community connectedness and self-regard among this group of women. Further analysis examines the relationship between community connectedness and psychological well-being. The findings are then positioned in the context of the narrative data from face-to-face interviews with the women.

Keywords
international adoption; Hong Kong; British Chinese Adoption Study; identity; community connectedness; self-regard;

Journal
Adoption & Fostering: Volume 36, Issue 3-4

People

Dr Maggie Grant

Lecturer in Social Work, Social Work