This study is a qualitative analysis of the writings of 40 Korean American adopted adults around the topic of birth family and culture. Utilizing grounded theory analysis, one main theoretical construct of "searching for connection-finding resolution" emerged from the writings. This construct represents a unique aspect of the transnational, transracial adoption identity journey. Within this main construct, there were four themes: (a) authentic self, (b) genetic connection to birth family and children), (c) adoptive family, and (d) cultural connection. The construct and themes add to the understanding of identity for adopted adults. These results also provide valuable information for mental health practitioners working with this population. What is the public significance of this article?This study adds an emerging theoretical construct to help understand the experiences of Korean American adopted adults. The emerging theory focuses on searching and resolving connections with self, others, and culture. As an often overlooked population within Asian Americans, this study highlights the unique experiences of transracially adopted individuals.

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This study is an exploratory qualitative examination of two separate non-profit family-style orphanages in Guatemala. The researchers used a grounded theory approach to study semistructured interviews of caregivers (N = 20). Caregivers mainly consisted of 'tias' who lived with the children and teachers who taught the children at the schools associated with the orphanage. The following categories emerged from the data: sense of belonging, hope for the future, and the importance of structure (e.g. organization and schedule). There was also an emphasis on religion in both the sense of belonging and hope for the future categories. This study adds to the emerging research regarding family-style orphanage care and focuses on caregiver perspectives.

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Adoption is frequently invoked as a universal social good—an uncomplicated win for adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents alike—that obviates the need for abortion. As antiabortionists weaponize adoption to attack reproductive rights, psychologists must recognize adoption as a key reproductive justice issue with significant, lifelong physical and psychological impacts, especially on adopted people and birth parents. Recognizing critical adoption studies as an application of a reproductive justice framework, we argue that psychologists must understand how adoption is both sustained by and reinforces structural inequality and global reproductive injustice. In a post- Roe reality, clinicians and researchers must critically examine adoption histories and myths in order to address the needs of the adoption triad. As an interdisciplinary team of researchers and clinicians in psychology; medicine; genetic counseling; and women's, gender, sexuality, and Asian American studies, we examine adoption's ties to settler colonialism, racism, classism, and imperialism and interrogate harmful dominant narratives about adoption. We then summarize clinical considerations for working with members of the adoption triad, future directions for research on adoption, and recommendations for both clinicians and researchers to advance adoption competence in the face of current attacks on reproductive rights in the United States.