• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.33-50
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• 2011

This study aims to examine experiences of adoptive families, mainly focusing on mothers with their biological children and adopted a child, through a phenomenological approach. The subjects of this study are adoptive family's mothers with their biological children according to a criterion-based selection. 15 mothers who adopted children under 12 months, who are currently aged over 6, are selected and given personal and in-depth interviews, questions ranging from the process before adoption, foster care and changes in family relationships to the issues caused by adoption and coping methods. 6 steps of a phenomenological method that Colaizzi(1978) proposed are applied to analyze the data. The results of this study are as follows. The central theme of this study is 'A family which has harmonized with love beyond blood ties'. First, the participants have shown difficulties in different aspects over adoption than those of sterile families. The motive of their adoption is to let adopted children experience a happy childhood in a loving family. Secondly, the participants have adjusted themselves to new adoptive families, have committed to the care of their new children, and have experienced a change in family relationships. Finally, adoptive families have successfully been settled while overcoming difficulties together.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.105-119
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• 2008

Investigating cross-cultural differences of family stress and adaptation in Korea and Australia, 49 families in open adoption were administered the Family Index of Regenerativity and Adaptation-General (McCubbin, 1987), Family Problem Solving Communications (McCubbin et al., 1988), and Social Support Index (McCubbin et al., 1982). Data were analyzed by T-test and correlation analysis. Results indicated that adoption itself was the primary stressor in both countries. Korean adoptive families were under stress by family-oriented factors; Australian adoptive families experienced external family stress. Regarding family hardiness, coping efforts and family communication, Australian adoptive families reported significantly higher family functioning than Korean adoptive families. Findings suggested that a broad range of social support is needed to improve family adaptability in both countries.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.99-116
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to analyze the influences of family resilience on the self-concept of adopted children in open adoptive families in Korea. The participants of this study consisted of 94 adoptive parents and 113 of their elementary-aged adopted children. The findings of this study were as follows. First, the family resilience level of open adoptive families was 2.91 out of 4 full points. Second, the self-concept of adopted children in elementary school showed significantly higher scores than a norm group. Finally, the socio-demographic characteristics and adoption related factors did not significantly influence the self-concept of adopted children. Only the organization patterns of family resilience positively affected the self-concept of adopted children.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.62 no.2
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• pp.209-233
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to understand the 'search' experiences of adoptive families. To understand their experiences in searching for birth families, the researchers made contacts with adoptive families who had tried the search before, got informed consents from them, and took in-depth interview with each family. The qualitative case study approach was taken to analyze the data collected. Data collected from five adoptive families were employed for within-case analysis and cross-case analysis. The themes emerged from cross-case analysis were 'the awareness of being adopted', 'curiosity explosion', 'the anxious waiting', 'the moment the truth was found', 'Indeed, I'm a real mom', and 'Then, there was a silence'. Based on the results of the study, the policy and practical guidelines to support the search of adoptive families were suggested. Also, the suggestions for the following studies were made to obtain more abundant information beyond the limitations of the study.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.35-48
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• 2022

This study aims to investigate prejudiced descriptions of adoption and adoptive families in the major textbooks in the field of child and family welfare studies. To this end, we analyzed the compositions and contents of eleven different textbooks and found four necessary changes to recommend: first, we found it essential for authors to have a comprehensive understanding of the characteristics of the open adoption culture and adoptive families. Second, we observed the need for the revision of prejudiced terminology found in textbooks' descriptions of adoptive families - about adopters, adoptees, and adoption institutions. Third, we advise an enhancement in the understanding of adoptive families reflecting both qualitative and quantitative understandings of the open adoption culture and perspective about social prejudice against adoptive families. Finally, we advocate for the inclusion adoptive families as one of the diverse forms a family can take, not only in the curriculum of child (children's rights) studies but also in the curricula of other family-related disciplines such as family welfare and healthy family theory. Based on these four changes, we propose a new approach to authoring including a multifaceted review of the subject composition and the content of the major textbooks and revision of the overall contents of the textbooks.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.47-68
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to provide information on adoptive families and obtain the basis data for adoption-related programs that are useful to adoptive families by examining their experiences in the adoption process, post-adoption adaptation, and adoption programs. For the study, in-depth interviews were conducted on six mothers who publicly adopted elementary school children and had expressed high satisfaction with adopted families and their willingness to participate in this research voluntarily. The main results exhibited parents' happiness post-adoption along with positive changes, such as internal growth, marital love growth, favorable response from others, and child's unexpected responses to adoption. However, open adoption mothers have coped with efforts to sympathize with and accept their children's feelings as they suffer from adoption, and with active support from their spouses, parents, and their own children. Open adoption mothers participated in various adoption-related programs, support, and voluntary self-help groups provided by adoption agencies or public organizations, and above all, their experience in self-help groups and peer groups of adopted children was found to be very useful. Based on these main results, we suggested strengthening welfare services for open adoption families, implementing education to better understand adoption, education for school teachers, students, and welfare staff, providing practical programs for adoptive families, and promoting self-help groups.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2015

Within the field of international adoption, little research has examined the involvement of fathers in cultural socialization practices. Using secondary data analysis with a sample of 332 international adoptive fathers and mothers, the present study examined international adoptive fathers' cultural socialization practices and compared these practices with those of international adoptive mothers. The results indicated that 1) family cultural socialization practices mainly engaged in by fathers were those that require little to no integration with people of the children's race and/or ethnicity, and 2) fathers' awareness or practices were found to be similar to those of mothers. This study illustrates the importance of continuing research on fathers' beliefs, attitudes, and practices in relation to the race and birth culture of their internationally adopted children.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.5-33
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to understand the open adoption experience of adoptive families. For this purpose, the data were collected through diverse data collection methods including in-depth interviews with adoptive families who had experiences of open adoption and analyzed using a qualitative case study approach. Data collected from six adoptive families were employed for within-case analysis and cross-case analysis. Each case was carefully examined and summarized using story-telling style in the within-case analysis and major issues for open adoption appeared in each case were described and compared one by one. In the cross-case analysis, all the cases were re-examined keeping the issues appeared in the within-case analysis in mind and eight integrated themes were emerged from it. The eight integrated themes are 'the crucial meeting', 'a clear arrangement', 'an uneasy parallel', 'the other mom', 'who are the real parents?', 'the words never to say', 'the hidden characters', and 'the center of relations or the outsider'. Based on the results of the study, the policies and practical guidelines related to open adoption were suggested. Also, the suggestions for the further studies were made to obtain more abundant information beyond the limitations of the study.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.459-468
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of eating habits and food preferences on the adoptive behavior of children with intellectual disabilities. Survey questionnaires were distributed to six special education schools located in the Daegu-Kyungbuk area, and data were collected from 552 families and teachers with intellectually disabled students. Identification of eating habits began with a factor analysis, and the results were a five-factor solution. Among the five patterns, factors 1 and 2 were significantly related with behavior problems of intellectually disabled children. Further, food preferences of the children were significantly related with adoptive behavior problems. The findings of this study clearly indicate that eating habits as well as food preferences are important factors in identifying adoptive behavior problems in intellectually disabled children. Based on the findings of this study, similarities and differences in eating habits are discussed, and implications for children are provided.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.1-17
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• 2022

This study provides a critical analysis of the Family Center's programs for adoptive families by interviewing employees at these centers and at Adoption Agencies who have experiences with adoption programs. For this study, nine such workers from three separate Family Centers and three such workers from two separate Adoption Agencies have (voluntarily) engaged in in-depth interviews. Major findings from the interviews are that the Family Centers were initially motivated to carry out adoption family programs for three principal reasons: they located many families (in need of adoption family program); potential adoptees were interested in the program; adoption families participated in the pre-existing programs such as Self-help Group and Co-parenting Space. Workers in the study also reported that they approach to an adoption family and their contemplation on ways to provide better services to the adoption families. They don't have any official and formal manual or guidelines from the Government Ministries and offices such as Korean Institute for Healthy Family; as a result, the workers at Family Centers have endeavored to gain connection with Adoption Agencies in hopes of cooperation with them and to improve the services at Family Centers. For benefits of Family Centers as a delivery system, they mentioned nationwide infrastructure, family professional, and arrangement of integrated program for family. For improvements, they listed awareness education based on a thorough consideration of adoptee's varied characteristics, close cooperation with adoption institutions, provision of basic operational manual from Korean Institute for Healthy Family, and governmental efforts to enlarge the consideration pool for families.