Ethnic Socialization and Perceived Discrimination on Ethnic Identity Among Transracial Adoptees: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between Italy and the United States

Abstract

There is limited research on how ethnic socialization and perceived discrimination concurrently contribute to ethnic identity development among transracial adoptees, and few studies have investigated these relationships across national contexts. Drawing upon the Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST) of human development, we examined the extent to which parental ethnic socialization and perceived discrimination as micro-level variables contribute to ethnic identity development among internationally adopted youth. Two different national contexts, the United States and Italy, as macro-level variables were examined as a potential moderator of these associations. Participants were 122 transracial adoptees living in the United States and 101 living in Italy (aged 15-20 years). In addition to adoptee survey reports, adoptive mothers completed a matching survey. Multisample structural equation modeling demonstrated parental ethnic socialization positively contributed to ethnic identity development in both groups. Cross-cultural differences emerged concerning the role of perceived discrimination. The ethnic identity of adoptees in Italy was negatively related to perceived discrimination, whereas there was no significant association among the adoptees in the United States. These findings highlighted the role of micro- and macro-levels of context in the ethnic identity development of internationally adopted youth.

Social and Family Factors Related to Intercountry Adoptees and Immigrants’ Bicultural Identity Integration

“…The fact that this association was not present among the adoptees in our study deserves some further discussion. Adopted youth might react differently to discrimination experiences, perhaps by distancing themselves from the ethnic group that is the discrimination target and increasing their levels of identification with the majority group they belong to (Ferrari, Hu, Rosnati, & Lee, 2017). In distancing themselves from the discrimination targets, adoptees are likely to shift toward their parents and family members who are part of the dominant group.…”

‘Writing about our adoption’: A qualitative study on intercountry adoptive parents’ narratives during the first post-adoption year

“…In the middle of this is an area where differences are both acknowledged and incorporated into the family. In intercountry adoptive families, this divergence of origin includes ethnic factors, such as traditions, values, social class, religion and, in some cases, race (Ferrari, et al, 2015;Ferrari, et al, 2017;Lee and Park, 2019;Montgomery and Jordan, 2018). The ability to acknowledge these kinds of differences is an important aspect of parental cultural socialisation regarding the child's background and intercountry adopters are expected to accept and actively support this process (Anderson, et al, 2015).…”

Female adopted Chinese-American youth’s sense of exclusion and short-and long-term adjustment.

“…Directly working with transracial adoptees and White adoptive parents to address these issues will be important. As adoptive parents play an important role in the adopted children's ethnic socialization (Ferrari et al, 2017), in working with adoptive parents, attention should be paid to highlight that adoptive parents might not be "insiders" of their children's lived experiences, particularly the experiences that created a sense of exclusion.…”