CHAPTER 4
BUILDING ORDER: CULTURE AND HISTORY

Macro-Micro Connections

Childhood as a Social Construction

Childhood is such a universal feature of human life that we readily consider it a natural stage of development. After all, doesn't every society that's ever existed have some people identified as "children"?

As obvious as the answer to this question may seem, variations in culture and over time are dramatic.

People in modern Western societies have a widely held, unquestioned belief that children are fundamentally different from adults. We take for granted that children areóand have always beenóinnocent and entitled to nurturing and protection. However, in other cultures (for example, Japan) children are viewed as much more independent creatures who can act willfully from the earliest moments of life.1

We tend to base our Western beliefs about the nature of childhood on biological considerations. Young children are thoroughly dependent on adults for their survival. Infants cannot feed themselves or take care of themselves in any way. A 10-month-old child, left on its own, will surely die within days. A human may remain dependent on his or her parents for several decades.

By contrast, other animal babies are much more self-sufficient. A newborn horse, for example, is able to gallop around when it is only a few minutes old.

To us, then, laws protecting innocent and defenseless children from dangers like exploitation at work, pornography, neglect, and abuse make sense. It seems inconceivable to us that the protection of innocent children is not a fundamental value in all societies, present and past.

But as you will see, childhood is not simply a biological stage of development. Rather it is a social category that emerges from the attitudes, beliefs, and values of particular societies at particular points in time,2 subject to changing definitions and expectations. Parental attachment to children, therefore, is less a function of instinct than a function of how parents in a particular culture or historical era perceive their responsibilities toward their children.

Indeed, according to some historians, the notion of childhood as a distinct phase of life didn't develop in

Western culture until the 16th and 17th centuries.3

Views of Childhood in the Middle Ages

Until the end of the Middle Ages, children in the West were sometimes seen as miniature versions of adults. If you look at paintings of the 15th and 16th centuries, you will notice that the children depicted in family portraits look like shrunken replicas of their parents. Their clothes and their bodily proportions are the same as those of adults.

This image goes beyond artistic representation. Because they were seen as miniature adults, children of the era were expected to act accordingly. They were expected to participate in all aspects of social life alongside their parents. Foul language, sexual acts, death, and so on were all permitted in their presence.

The notion that children deserve special protection and treatment did not exist at this time. Children could be punished, and frequently were, for social transgressions with the same severity that adults were.

Families of the 1600s and 1700s may have valued children for their role in inheritance, but children clearly didn't elicit the same kind of sentiment that they elicit from adults today.4

This rather "unsentimental" treatment of children probably had something to do with demographic realities.

Fatal disease in the Middle Ages was quite prevalent, and infant mortality rates were extremely high.

Young children were not expected to live for very long. In 17th century France, for instance, between 20 and 50 percent of all infants died within the first year after birth.5

People commonly believed, therefore, that if they wanted only a few children, they should have many more in order to "hedge their bets.Ó Parents couldn't allow themselves to get too emotionally attached to something that was seen as a probable loss. Some even referred to their infant as "it" until the child reached an age at which survival was likely.

At that time, the death of a baby was probably not the emotional tragedy that it is today. In Spain, for example, when an infant died he or she was likely to be buried almost anywhere on the premises, like a pet cat or dog. Even the dead children of the rich were sometimes treated as paupers, their bodies sewn into sacks and thrown into common graves.6

Childhood in the 18th and 19th Centuries

By the 18th century, perceptions of childhood in the West were beginning to change. Children began to be seen as innocent and in need of protection, not unlike the way we see them today. Consequently, though, they were viewed as weak and susceptible to temptation. Along with the notion of protection came the notion of discipline, as parents taught their children to avoid the enticements of their social world.

Severe beatings of children in the name of discipline were common occurrences up until the late 18th century (and persist in some corners of society even to this day). Such cruelty was often couched in religious terms. One Dutch theologian offered the theory that God had formed the human buttocks so that they could be severely beaten without causing serious bodily injury.7 Heaven was sometimes described to children in Sunday school as "a place where children are never beaten."8

Definitions of childhood throughout history have been influenced by social institutions as well. Until the late 1800s, for instance, child labor was commonly practiced and accepted.9 In the early part of the 19th century, perhaps half of all workers in northern factories were children under the age of eleven.10 Children worked as long and as hard as adults, sometimes even harder. Because of their small size, they were sometimes given difficult and hazardous jobs, like cleaning out the insides of narrow factory chimneys. In poor urban families, parents often forced their children to engage in scavenging and street peddling.

In addition, abandoned children were sometimes recruited by unscrupulous adults for use in robbery and prostitution and other marginal enterprises:

Some had their teeth torn out to serve as artificial teeth for the rich; others were deliberately maimed by beggars to arouse compassion. . . . Even this latter crime was one upon which the law looked with a remarkably tolerant eye. In 1761 a beggar woman, convicted of deliberately "putting out the eyes of children with whom she went about the country" in order to attract pity and alms, was sentenced to no more than two years' imprisonment.11

Although we have little evidence today of complete social approval or tolerance of these kinds of practices, they weren't severely sanctioned either.

Only by the middle of the 19th century did the first child protection organizations emerge. In 1825 the first

House of Refuge in America was founded, an institution whose purpose was to provide sanctuary to children who had been abused or neglected. In subsequent years many similar institutions were established.

Even these, however, were not totally sensitive to the welfare of children. Their purpose was not to protect but to prevent children from becoming economic burdens and threats to society. Many people at the time believed that a bad childhood would lead to a bad adulthood. The House of Refuge sought to prevent the potential criminal tendencies of poor urban youths from ever surfacing by removing them from abusive home environments and placing them in institutions. Here they would share a "proper growing up" with other abandoned and neglected youths as well as delinquents who had violated the law. 12

The social value of children was also affected by major economic transformations in society.13 The shift from a predominantly agricultural economy to an industrialized one in the 19th century revolutionized cultural conceptions. On the farm, families were bound together by economic necessity rather than emotions. Children were a crucial source of labor in the family economy, and they were a source of financial support in old age.14

Consequently, the birth of a child was hailed as the arrival of a future laborer who would contribute to the financial security of the family. In adoption practices, the most desirable child was the teenage male because of his potential value as a laborer. 15

20th-Century Childhood

With the firm establishment of industrialization by the middle of the 20th century, children were no longer seen as economic necessities. The main source of income was now the parents, or more accurately the fathers, working outside the home. As a result, children became economically "useless," and people began to see them as downright costly to raise.16

At the same time, though, the culture was beginning to recognize their emotional importance. Today's parents are more likely to look to their children for intimacy and less likely to expect anything tangible in return, such as economic support in old age.

The contemporary social value of children is therefore determined not by their labor potential but by the love and care they are thought to deserve. Hence the most desirable child for adoption today is the newborn baby. A person living in an earlier era would find this preference difficult to understand, just as we today assume that babies bring forth a nurturing instinct in adults.

1 Kagan, J. 1976. Raising children in modern America: Problems and prospective solutions. Boston: Little, Brown.
2 Hays, S. 1996. The cultural contradictions of motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
3 Aries, P. 1962. Centuries of childhood: A social history of family life. New York: Vintage Books.
4 Aries, P. 1962. Centuries of childhood: A social history of family life. New York: Vintage Books.
5 McCoy, E. 1981. "Childhood through the ages." Parents Magazine, January.
6 Cited in Zelizer, V. 1985. Pricing the priceless child. New York: Basic Books.
7 Stone, L. 1979. The family, sex and marriage in England 1500-1800. New York: Harper Torchbooks.
8 Archer, D. 1985. "Social deviance." In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (3rd ed., Vol. 2). New York: Random House.
9 Archer, D. 1985. "Social deviance." In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (3rd ed., Vol. 2). New York: Random House.
10 Coontz, S. 1992. The way we never were. New York: Basic Books.
11 Stone, L. 1979. The family, sex and marriage in England 1500-1800. New York: Harper Torchbooks. p. 298.
12 Pfohl, S. J. 1977. "The discovery of child abuse." Social Problems, 24, 310-323.
13 LeVine, R. A., & White, M. 1992. "The social transformation of childhood." In A. S. Skolnick & J. H. Skolnick (Eds.), Family in transition. New York: HarperCollins. Also Zelizer, V. 1985. Pricing the priceless child. New York: Basic Books.
14 LeVine, R. A., & White, M. 1992. "The social transformation of childhood." In A. S. Skolnick & J. H. Skolnick (Eds.), Family in transition. New York: HarperCollins.
15 Zelizer, V. 1985. Pricing the priceless child. New York: Basic Books.
16 LeVine, R. A., & White, M. 1992. "The social transformation of childhood." In A. S. Skolnick & J. H. Skolnick (Eds.), Family in transition. New York: HarperCollins.

Female Genital Mutilation

Conflict between cultures is most likely when one culture's long-held tradition is perceived as brutal and oppressive by members of other cultures. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is one such tradition. People from cultures that don't practice FGM condemn it vehemently. But in the cultures that practice FGM, it has considerable social value.

According to the World Health Organization, between 85 and 114 million girls and women worldwide have been subjected to FGM.1 This practice occurs in some form in hundreds of ethnic groups in over 40 countries in Africa and the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Kenya, and Nigeria.

The procedure, which entails removal of the clitoris or destruction of the labia and vulva, or both, is typically performed by a midwife using a sharp instrument such as a razor blade, scissors, knife, or piece of glass. Antiseptic techniques and anesthesia are generally not used, except among the affluent. The girl's age at the time of the ritual varies from culture to culture, but she is usually between 4 and 10.

This cultural tradition reflects the value of women in these societies. Where FGM exists as a common practice, men have traditionally demanded that their wives be virgins when they marry. Indeed, a girl who has not undergone this procedure may be considered "unclean" or a prostitute by local villagers and therefore unmarriageable. The ritual also serves to regulate women's sexuality by diminishing sexual pleasure.

Ironically, women themselves usually mothers and grandmothers defend and enforce the practice, exerting strong pressure on their daughters and granddaughters to abide by the custom.2 Such pressure is seldom motivated by cruelty. In fact, these older women may have the girls' best interests in mind. If a young woman's marriageability, and therefore her future economic security, requires that she undergo FGM, her very survival is at stake:

In a culture in which men will not marry you unless you have been mutilated and there is no other work you can do and you are . . . considered a prostitute if you are not mutilated, you face a very big problem. Women mutilate their daughters because they really are looking down the road to a time when the daughter will . . . marry and at least have a roof . . . and food.3

Perhaps not surprisingly, given these considerations, FGM is spreading worldwide rather than diminishing despite modernization, public education, and legal prohibition (FGM was recently outlawed in Egypt).4

Effective change can only come about if male-dominated cultures address women's economic and social vulnerability: their poverty, financial dependency, educational disadvantage, and obstacles to employment.5

Meanwhile, many in the international community have tried to stop FGM. However, some argue that attempting to forbid a practice in another culture that has existed for generations is arrogant. They argue that efforts of international organizations like the United Nations and the World Health Organization to abolish FGM are dangerous examples of ethnocentric meddling. They point to incidents like the hostile protest movement that targeted a newspaper in Sierra Leone. The movement successfully convinced the public that the newspaper's criticism of FGM was generated by outsiders trying to impose alien values on the country.6

On the other hand, others feel that no practice oppressing a particular groupóin this case, womenóought to be tolerated. They cite the influence of international opposition in the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa as an example of how effective global pressure can be against injustice. They reject the notion that a physically harmful practice like FGM must be understood within the appropriate cultural context and argue that only worldwide demands for change will halt FGM.

This debate is more relevant to Americans than you might think. With immigration increasing worldwide, FGM is being practiced more often in countries where it was previously unknown. In Britain, Sweden, France, and Switzerland, FGM has been outlawed for years. Here in the United States, however, an estimated 150,000 women and girls of African descent may be at risk of the rite or have already been cut.7

But opposition to FGM is now a part of our national human rights policy. In 1996 the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals, a branch of the Justice Department, granted political asylum to a 19-year-old woman from Togo who said she had fled her homeland to avoid being subjected to FGM. The ruling represented a formal recognition that FGM is a form of persecution and that women who refuse to undergo the practice face threats to their freedom, physical harm, or social ostracism.8

That same year, Congress passed a law outlawing FGM and directing federal authorities to inform new immigrants from countries where it is commonly practiced that parents who arrange for their children to be cut here face up to five years in prison.

As individuals rooted in a society that does not practice FGM, we can applaud such a stand. But as students of sociology, we must acknowledge that culture and history may make opposing viewpoints equally valid.

1 Cited in Dugger, C. W. 1996. "Woman's plea for asylum puts tribal ritual on trial." New York Times, April 15.
2 Crossette, B. 1995. "Female genital mutilation by immigrants is becoming cause for concern in U.S." New York Times, December 10.
3 Walker, A., & Parmar, P. 1993. Warrior marks: Female genital mutilation and the sexual blinding of women. New York: Harcourt Brace, p. 277.
4 Mackie, G. 1996. "Ending footbinding and infibulation: A convention account." American Sociological Review, 61, 999-1017.
5 Gruenbaum, E. 1993. "The movement against clitoridectomy and infibulation in Sudan: Public health policy and the women's movement." In C. B. Brettell & C. F. Sargent (Eds.), Gender in cross-cultural prespective. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
6 French, H. W. 1997. "Africa's culture war: Old customs, new values." New York Times, February 2.
7 Cited in Dugger, C. W. 1996. "Woman's plea for asylum puts tribal ritual on trial." New York Times, April 15.
8 Dugger, C. W. 1996. "U.S. grants asylum to woman fleeing genital mutilation rite." New York Times, June 14.

Time as a Social Construction

Most of us think of time as uniform and unchangeable. A minute is a minute no matter who you are or where you live. Time, though, is a human construction.

Some units of timeólike days, months, and yearsóparallel natural events, such as the movement of the earth and moon. Others, however, are clearly arbitrary. Seconds, minutes, and hours do not exist in nature. The 7-day week has been traced to holy numbers, planets, and astrology.1

Although time is measured in absolute units, it is not perceived the same way in all situations. Think of how time flies when you're on an enjoyable date but drags when you're in a boring class. The extra 5 minutes of sleep we desire after the alarm goes off in the morning is infinitely more valuable to us than 5 minutes stuck in traffic.

In some situations, time is structurally irrelevant. Las Vegas casinos, for example, have no windows and no clocks, and they operate 24 hours a day.

It would be a mistake to assume that all members of a large, complex society like ours share the same conceptions of time. Different regions have their own time rules. In some areas people are described as "laid back"; in others they're "fast-paced" or "always in a hurry."

Conceptions of time are also tied to occupation. Work life is often synonymous with the amount of time you spend on the job as well as the time you spend preparing for work, getting there, and getting back. Workdays are punctuated by time demands or deadlines.

In addition, in most jobs people are paid by the hour. Time has thus become an economic commodity, something that can be exchanged for money, wasted, shared, or saved.2

Norms concerning the definition and use of time vary from culture to culture. For instance, cultures differ in their orientations toward the future and the past. Phrases like "time heals all wounds" or "that's ancient history" are meaningful only within a culture that makes significant distinctions between the past and the future. To some people, such phrases would make neither linguistic nor cultural sense. In many Arab societies there are only three sets of time: no time at all, now (which varies in duration), and forever (too long).3

The Hopi of the American Southwest have no tenses in their language indicating past, present, or future.4 For them time does not proceed in a linear fashion and is not perceived as a series of discrete instances. Life is cyclical, and events such as meals or ceremonies are not unique but are accumulated over time.

The idea of living by a clock is still foreign to much of the world today. In Burundi, for example, appointments are regulated not by clocks but by natural cycles:

People who grew up in rural areas…might make an early appointment by saying, "I'll see you tomorrow morning when the cows are going out for grazing." If they want to meet in the middle of the day they set their appointment time for "when the cows are going to drink in the stream."5

Contrast this sort of scheduling to the clock time that prevails in the United States. Our watches tell us when it is time to work and when it is time to play. We even let our clocks dictate biological events.6 We say things like "It's too early to go to sleep" or "It's not dinner time yet" to override signals we're receiving from our bodies that we're tired or hungry. Every parent knows that part of training an infant is getting him or her to eat and sleep on a "regular schedule," which more often than not conforms to the parents' sense of time.

Americans are acutely sensitive to time and timing. Our days often consist of a series of precisely scheduled episodes. Your classes meet at specific times of the day. Perhaps you live in a dormitory where meals are served only at certain times. If you work, you have "hours" that you must keep or risk losing your job.

An American ideal is to be punctual or "on time." So valued are the rules of punctuality that, if you violate them, you are required to provide an apology and an explanation. Although individual differences do exist, like the friend who is "always late," and situational differences arise, like arriving at a party "fashionably late," most of us subscribe to the notion that one should be on time if at all possible.

Other cultures place a very different value on punctuality. Terms like late, early, or on time are not universal. Psychologist Robert Levine studied time norms in Brazil. He noted that Brazilians have much more flexible conceptions of time and punctuality than Americans do.7 He wrote of an experience he had while he was a visiting professor at a university outside Rio de Janeiro:

My class was scheduled from 10 until noon. Many students came late, some very late. Several arrived after 10:30. A few showed up closer to 11. Two came after that. All of the latecomers wore relaxed smiles. . . . Each one said hello, and although a few apologized briefly, none seemed terribly concerned about lateness. They assumed that I understood.

Back home in California, I never need to look at a clock to know when the class hour is ending. The shuffling of books is accompanied by strained expressions that say plaintively, "I'm starving. . . . I've got to go to the bathroom. . . . I'm going to suffocate if you keep us one more second." When noon arrived in my first Brazilian class, only a few students left immediately. Others slowly drifted out during the next 15 minutes. . . . When several remaining students kicked off their shoes at 12:30, I went into my own "starving/bathroom/suffocation" routine. Apparently for many of my students, staying late was simply of no more importance than arriving late in the first place.8

Such cultural differences in time are not merely amusing or trivial. They tell us a great deal about the nature and values of a particular society. Brazilians tend to believe that a person who is consistently late is probably more successful than one who is consistently on time. Lack of punctuality is a badge of success.

People tend to build ideas of national character around the pace of a particular culture's way of life. We Americans admire the Germans and the Swiss because of their ability to "make the trains run on time." We may characterize some Arab and South American cultures as "lazy" or "apathetic" because of their apparent disregard for timeliness. We see the Japanese as aggressive, partly because their pace of life is quicker than ours and because they are "ahead of us" in other measurable ways.9

Appreciating such cultural differences in time sense becomes increasingly important as modern methods of communication put greater numbers of people in daily contact.

1 Zerubavel, E. 1985. The seven day circle: The history and meaning of the week. New York: Free Press.
2 Kearl, M. C., & Gordon, C. 1992. Social psychology. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
3 Hall, E. T. 1969. The hidden dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
4 Whorf, B. 1956. Language, thought and reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
5 Levine, R. 1997. A geography of time. New York: Basic Books.
6 Levine, R. 1997. A geography of time. New York: Basic Books.
7 Levine, R., & Wolff, E. 1988. "Social time: The heartbeat of culture." In E. Angeloni (Ed.), Annual editions in anthropology 88/89. Guilford, CT: Dushkin.
8 Levine, R. 1997. A geography of time. New York: Basic Books, pp. 78-79.
9 Levine, R., & Wolff, E. 1988. "Social time: The heartbeat of culture." In E. Angeloni (Ed.), Annual editions in anthropology 88/89. Guilford, CT: Dushkin.

Transracial Adoption

Loyalty and pride in one's culture are likely to be felt most powerfully in the face of a perceived threat to the integrity of the culture. Consider the issue of transracial adoption, the practice of adopting children from a different racial group.

Most transracial adoptions involve white parents and a minority childóAfrican American, Hispanic, or Asian. Many transracial adoptions involve children from developing countries.

The assumption in transracial adoptions is that race and ethnic background are irrelevant and ought to be minimized or ignored in the interests of finding a loving home for the child. In addition, the child, who likely comes from a financially depressed and deprived background, will have better opportunities in a more "advantaged" environment. Advocates also argue that transracial adoption has the potential to transform a racially divided society into a racially integrated one.

Transracial adoption has had strong support in American society. In the late 1960s, when transracial adoptions started to become more common, adoption agencies strongly encouraged white families to adopt children from other races. Today, organizations like the National Committee for Adoption have formally stated that, because so many minority children are waiting for adoption, permanency rather than racial matching should be of paramount consideration.1 The Multi-Ethnic Placement Act of 1994 forbids federally funded agencies from considering race, culture, and ethnicity in their placement decisions, making it easier for couples to adopt children of a different racial background.

Transracial adoption has not been without its critics, however. In 1972 the National Association of Black Social Workers passed a resolution, still in effect today, against the adoption of black children by white parents.2 The group argued that transracial adoptions are harmful to black heritage and that to maintain the integrity of their culture, blacks must be loyal to its uniqueness.

They also pointed out that a black child growing up in a white family will never learn about his or her own culture and will therefore never develop a positive self-image. White parents can never provide a black child with sufficient information about what it is like to be black in a predominantly white society.

In the larger historical and political context, the fear that transracial adoption weakens racial identity and culture makes sense. In the 1960s and 1970s, for example, nearly 30% of all Native American children were removed from their families and put up for adoption. Social workers had deemed thousands of parents unfit because of poverty, alcoholism, and other problems. So devastating to the Native American culture was the removal of these children that the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed in 1978, giving tribes special preference in adopting children of Native American heritage.3

Recently, however, this law has come under attack. Cases have been reported in which tribes have contested the adoption by white parents of children who have only a minute trace of Indian ancestry. In the 1990s Congress considered an adoption bill that would limit a tribal court's jurisdiction in adoption proceedings involving children whose biological parents do not maintain "significant social, cultural or political affiliation with the tribe."4

For African Americans, the civil rights movement of the 1960s instilled an unprecedented pride in their racial identity. At a time when political power seemed to be within reach of African Americans, the possibility that some black children were being raised as white was difficult to tolerate. If it were true that black children adopted by white parents had difficulty identifying with the black culture, then they would be less likely to support black political issues. In this sense, the potential loss of cultural and racial identity could not be separated from broader political concerns.

The opposition to transracial adoption has been quite effective. From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, when transracial adoption reached its peak, approximately 15,000 black children were adopted by white parents.5 In 1971, 1 out of every 3 black children who was adopted was placed with a white family.6 But by 1975 (the last year the government collected data on transracial adoption), adoptions of black children by white parents had disappeared almost completely.7 By 1987, 35 states had established policies against cross-racial adoption.

Have the fears of children losing their racial identities been borne out? Research on this issue has been somewhat mixed. Some studies have shown that a relatively low percentage of young black children adopted by white families have problems with racial identity.8 Several studies have found that preschool children involved in transracial adoptions are as well adjusted as children from same-race adoptions.9 Studies that have followed transracially adopted children from infancy until well beyond adolescence have found that, despite periodic racial name-calling at school and in other public situations, these individuals do not have problems identifying as black Americans, are well-adjusted for the most part, and show good to very good self-esteem.10

Beyond the level of individual adjustment, though, the broader problem of cultural heritage remains. White adoptive parents have been known to minimize or ignore the racial identity of their children, considering parenthood and family more important than race.11 In a study of 30 adolescent black children adopted by white parents, only 10 of them identified themselves as black; 6 said they were "mixed," and the rest tried to avoid a racial identity altogether by saying they were "human" or "American."12

Not only does the issue of transracial adoption provide an interesting example of cultural loyalty and protection, it also shows conflicting institutional functions. Transracial adoption is as much about cultural conceptions of what the family's role in society ought to be as it is about race. Traditionally, one of the important functions of the family has been to offer unqualified emotional support, nurturing, and protection to its members. But the family is also supposed to provide its members with cultural instruction and a sense of racial, ethnic, or religious identity.

The difficulty we face as a society is deciding which of these functions should take precedence. The difficulty we face as students of sociology is reconciling our human concern for individual children with our scientific concern for multiple points of view.

1 Adamec, C., & Pierce, W. L. 1991. The encyclopedia of adoption. New York: Facts on File. 2Davis, F. J. 1991. Who is black? University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
3 Egan, T. 1993. "A cultural gap may swallow a child." New York Times, October 12.
4 Schmitt, E. 1996. "Adoption bill facing battle over a provision on Indians." New York Times, May 8, p. C18.
5 Davis, F. J. 1991. Who is black? University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
6 Ladner, J. 1978. Mixed families: Adopting across racial boundaries. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press.
7 Adamec, C., & Pierce, W. L. 1991. The encyclopedia of adoption. New York: Facts on File. See also Davis, F. J. 1991. Who is black? University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
8 See, for example, Feigelman, W., & Silverman, A. B. 1984. "The long-term effects of transracial adoption." Social Service Review, 58, 588-602.
9 Shireman, J. F., & Johnson, P. R. 1986. "A longitudinal study of black adoptions: Single parent, transracial and traditional." Social Work, 31, 172-176. See also Zastrow, C. 1977. Outcome of black children-white parents transracial adoptions. San Francisco: R & E Research Associates.
10 Simon, R., Alstein, H., & Melli, M. S. 1994. The case for transracial adoption. Washington, DC: The American University Press. See also Vroegh, K. S. 1997. "Transracial adoptees: Developmental status after 17 years." American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 67, 568-575.
11 Ladner, J. 1978. Mixed families: Adopting across racial boundaries. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press.
12 McRoy, R. G., & Zurcher, L. A. 1983. Transracial and inracial adoptees: The adolescent years. Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas.