Mixed Race Studies

Pathways to Permanence for Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnicity Children: Delemmas, Decision-Making and Outcomes

Research Brief
DCSF-RBX-13-08
October 2008
8 pages

Julie Selwyn
Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies
University of Bristol

P. Harris
Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies
University of Bristol

David Quinton
Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies
University of Bristol

S. Nawaz
Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies
University of Bristol

Dinithi Wijedasa
Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies
University of Bristol

Marsha Wood
Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies
University of Bristol

Recent research reviews stress the lack of information on permanency planning and pathways to permanence for black and minority ethnic (BME) children. Even basic data are missing and there are no available comparisons between children of different ethnicities. Delays differentially affect and disadvantage children of minority ethnic heritage but, beyond speculation, there are no data on the processes that underlie delays for them.

In this study differential planning and decision-making affecting the progress of BME children towards permanence will be compared retrospectively from case files with that of non-BME children over a two-year period in a sample of approximately 106 children looked-after continuously for over one year in three local authorities with high and contrasting BME populations. Progress towards permanence following a recent or current best-interests recommendation will also be tracked prospectively in a separate sample of approximately 200 BME children. For fifty of these, decision-making will be followed in real-time. Case-file data and interviews with social workers and their managers will be used. The outcomes for children of black, Asian and mixed heritages will be compared.

There will be two additional outputs: a conceptual and research review of matching – a likely key element in delay and differential pathways-; and a scoping review of current practice models for the recruitment and support of BME parents for BME children for whom permanence is the aim.

This study will provide essential new information relevant to the policy objectives of increasing the use of adoption as a permanency solution for children unlikely to return to their own families and reducing the delays in this process. With respect to the brief for this initiative, the study will:

• Investigate whether looked-after BME children are less likely to be placed for adoption and why they may wait longer for placement
• Examine the process affecting successful placement for them.
• Compare the placement pathways of Black, Asian and mixed parentage children.
• Compare three authorities will high but different BME populations.
• Examine how the government’s attempts to increase the use of adoption are being translated into practice with respect to BME children.
• Examine how social workers are applying the principles underlying adoption reform.
• Identify good practice models for the recruitment and support of BME adopters.

Read the entire paper here.

Vulnerable Multiracial Families and Early Years Services: Concerns, Challenges and Opportunities

Children & Society
Volume 10, Issue 4 (December 1996)
Pages 305 – 316
DOI: 10.1111/j.1099-0860.1996.tb00598.x

Margaret Boushel
Department of Social Work and Social Care
University of Sussex

In Britain, very young mixed-parentage children are more likely to receive state care than any other children. However, despite a dramatic increase in the number of multiracial families, their experiences have received little research attention. This article reviews the research on the experiences of vulnerable and poor multiracial families. Three areas of concern emerge—the relationship between family structure, locality and racism, disadvantage and oppression; the impact on family life of structurally reinforced and culturally defined gender roles; and the strengths and limitations of current early years research and practice. Suggestions are made about ways in which early years professionals might develop their practice with young vulnerable multiracial families.

Read or purchase the article here.

Building Kinship and Community: Relational Processes of Bicultural Identity Among Adult Multiracial Adoptees

Family Process
Volume 49, Issue 1 (March 2010)
pages 26-42
DOI: 10.1111/j.1545-5300.2010.01306.x

Gina Miranda Samuels, Associate Professor
School of Social Service Administration
University of Chicago

This study uses the case of transracially adopted multiracial adults to highlight an alternative family context and thus process of African American enculturation. Interpretive analyses of interviews with 25 adult multiracial adoptees produced 4 patterns in their bicultural identity formation: (1) claiming whiteness culturally but not racially, (2) learning to “be Black”—peers as agents of enculturation, (3) biological pathways to authentic Black kinship, and (4) bicultural kinship beyond Black and White. Conceptualizing race as an ascribed extended kinship network and using notions of “groundedness” from bicultural identity literature, the relational aspects of participants’ identity development are highlighted. Culturally relevant concepts of bicultural identity are proposed for practice with multiracial adoptees who have multiple cultures of origin and for whom White mainstream culture is transmitted intrafamilially as a first culture.

Read the entire article here.

Deconstructing Binary Race and Sex Categories: A Comparison of the Multiracial and Transgendered Experience

San Diego Law Review
Volume 39, Number 3 (2002)
pages 917-942

Julie A. Greenberg, Professor of Law
Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego

This Article explores the potential difficulties that exist as legal institutions develop a classification of transgendered people, and suggests that an examination of how legal institutions have classified race and sex in the past can help shape the way that legal institutions shape transgendered classifications in the future. The article summarizes the development of race classifications for multiracial people. The author then examines the development of sex classifications for various legal purposes like marriage, identity, and the right to pursue discrimination claims. The author also examines how the medical community contributes to the stereotypical definitions of sex as binary and biologically determinable. The author then proceeds to evaluate some of the challenges that face the development of multiracial classifications, and how those challenges may affect the development of transgendered classifications. The author argues that in developing sex classification systems, legal institutions should be aware of the problems that can arise when seeking to adopt a single unified standard for determining sex, because where in some instances the acceptance of sex as a sociopolitical construct can promote greater acceptance of sexual minorities, it might also further contribute to discrimination.

Read the entire article here.

Beyond Just Black and White: Why I was so eager to claim my biracial son for my own side

Newsweek.com
2009-01-24

Raina Kelley, Weekly Columnist

When I took my newly born son from the nurse’s arms, I did the expected counting of his fingers and toes. I checked under his cap for hair and flexed his little limbs. Once confident he was whole and healthy, I began to wonder how dark his skin would get. As a black woman married to one of the world’s fairest men, I worried that our son would be so light-skinned as to appear Caucasian, and I wanted him to look black…

Read the entire article here.

The End of Black History: A Postscript to My Son

Newsweek.com
2010-02-28
00:13:57

Raina Kelley, Weekly Columnist

In trying to understand what black history will mean to my son when he’s old enough to wonder, I went in search of the purpose of Black History Month. (Video: Raina Kelly, Jon Groat; Additional material courtesy Angelique Kidjo, Penn Museum)

Marcia Dawkins to be Featured Guest on Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat (The only live weekly show about being racially and culturally mixed. Also, founders of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival) Hosted by Fanshen Cox and Heidi W. Durrow
Website: TalkShoe™ (Keywords: Mixed Chicks)
Episode: #153 – Marcia Dawkins
When: Wednesday, 2010-05-19 22:00Z (18:00 EDT, 15:00 PDT)

Marcia Alesan Dawkins, Assistant Professor of Human Communication
California State University, Fullerton

Marcia Alesan Dawkins, Ph.D., is a blogger, professor and communication researcher in Los Angeles. Her interests are mixed race identification, politics, popular culture and new media. Her new book, Clearly Invisible:  Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity, looks at racial passing as a viable form of communication. She lectures and consults on these issues at conferences worldwide.

Communication, Race, and Family: Exploring Communication in Black, White, and Biracial Families

Routledge
1999-08-01
Pages: 264
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-8058-2938-9
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8058-2939-6

Edited by:

Thomas J. Socha

Rhunette C. Diggs

This groundbreaking volume explores how family communication influences the perennial and controversial topic of race. In assembling this collection, editors Thomas J. Socha and Rhunette C. Diggs argue that the hope for managing America’s troubles with “race” lies not only with communicating about race at public meetings, in school, and in the media, but also—and more fundamentally—with families communicating constructively about race at home.

African-American and European-American family communication researchers come together in this volume to investigate such topics as how Black families communicate to manage the issue of racism; how Black parent-child communication is used to manage the derogation of Black children; the role of television in family communication about race; the similarities and differences between and among communication in Black, White, and biracial couples and families; and how family communication education can contribute to a brighter future for all. With the aim of developing a clearer understanding of the role that family communication plays in society’s move toward a multicultural world, this volume provides a crucial examination of how families struggle with issues of ethnic cultural diversity.

Table of Contents

• M.K. Asante, Foreword. Preface
• T.J. Socha, R.C. Diggs, At the Crossroads of Communication, Race, and Family: Toward Understanding Black, White, and Biracial Family Communication
• J.L. Daniel, J.E. Daniel, African-American Childrearing: The Context of a Hot Stove
• I.B. Ferguson, African-American Parent-Child Communication About Racial Derogation
• S.L. Parks, Race and Electronic Media in the Lives of Four Families: An Ethnographic Study
• R.A. Davilla, White Children’s Talk About Race and Culture: Family Communication and Intercultural Socialization
• R.C. Diggs, African-American and European-American Adolescents’ Perceptions of Self-Esteem as Influenced by Parent and Peer Communication and Support Environments
• M. Dainton, African-American, European-American, and Biracial Couples’ Meanings for and Experiences in Marriage. M.P. Orbe, Communicating About “Race” in Interracial Families
• B.K. Alexander, H.P. LeBlanc, III, Cooking Gumbo–Examining Cultural Dialogue About Family: A Black-White Narrativization of Lived Experience in Southern Louisiana
• T.J. Socha, J. Beigle, Toward Improving Life at the Crossroads: Family Communication Education and Multicultural Competence
• K. Galvin, Epilogue: Illuminating and Evoking Issues of Race and Family Communication

The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870-1940

University of Texas Press
1990
143 pages
10 b&w illus.
6 x 9 in.
ISBN: 978-0-292-73857-7

Edited by

Richard Graham, Emeritus Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor of History
University of Texas, Austin

With chapters by Thomas E. Skidmore, Aline Helg, and Alan Knight

From the mid-nineteenth century until the 1930s, many Latin American leaders faced a difficult dilemma regarding the idea of race. On the one hand, they aspired to an ever-closer connection to Europe and North America, where, during much of this period, “scientific” thought condemned nonwhite races to an inferior category. Yet, with the heterogeneous racial makeup of their societies clearly before them and a growing sense of national identity impelling consideration of national futures, Latin American leaders hesitated. What to do? Whom to believe?

Latin American political and intellectual leaders’ sometimes anguished responses to these dilemmas form the subject of The Idea of Race in Latin America. Thomas Skidmore, Aline Helg, and Alan Knight have each contributed chapters that succinctly explore various aspects of the story in Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, and Mexico. While keenly alert to the social and economic differences that distinguish one Latin American society from another, each author has also addressed common issues that Richard Graham ably draws together in a brief introduction. Written in a style that will make it accessible to the undergraduate, this book will appeal as well to the sophisticated scholar.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• 1. Introduction (Richard Graham)
• 2. Racial Ideas and Social Policy in Brazil, 1870-1940 (Thomas E. Skidmore)
• 3. Race in Argentina and Cuba, 1880-1930: Theory, Policies, and Popular Reaction (Aline Helg)
• 4. Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo: Mexico, 1910-1940 (Alan Knight)
• Bibliography
• Index

Read the intrduction here.

Resolving “Other” Status: Identity Development of Biracial Individuals

Women & Therapy
Volume 9, Issue 1 & 2 (May 1990)
pages 185 – 205
DOI: 10.1300/J015v09n01_11

Maria P. P. Root

The current paper describes the phenomenological experience of marginal socio-ethnic status for biracial individuals. A metamodel for identity resolution for individuals who struggle with other status is proposed. Subsequently, multiple strategies in the resolution of ethnic identity development are proposed among which the individual may move and maintain a positive, stable self-image.

Read or purchase the article here.