The diversity and complexity of the everyday lives of mixed racial and ethnic families: implications for adoption and fostering practice and policy

Abstract

Recent research on mixed racial and ethnic couple and lone parents in Britain indicates that not only are they a diverse group, but that they also have a diversity of ways of understanding their difference and creating a sense of belonging for their children (Caballero, Edwards and Puthussery, 2008; Caballero, 2010; Caballero, 2011). Such research strongly challenges the idea that there is – or should be – a single benchmark of how to raise children from mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds. Nevertheless, placement decisions for children from mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds are often still rooted in longstanding and politicised assumptions about their identities and how best to instil a positive and healthy sense of self (Phoenix, 1999; Okitikpi, 2005; Goodyer and Okitikpi, 2007; Patel 2008).
Drawing on three recent studies exploring the everyday experiences of lone and couple parents of mixed racial and ethnic children, this paper discusses the ways in which mixed racial and ethnic children who are not in the care system experience difference and belonging within their families and how they negotiate and manage these factors. In particular, the paper illustrates the types of strategies and supports that parents draw on to give their children a positive sense of identity and belonging, as well as the ways in which other issues can be more significant for mixed racial and ethnic children and their parents than what they often see as ‘ordinary’ internal family difference.
Arguing that the demographics and experiences of mixed racial and ethnic families are much more diverse and complex than is commonly imagined, the authors thus ask to what extent do policies and practice around the placement of mixed racial and ethnic children reflect the lives of those families outside the care system and, moreover, in what ways can or should the experiences of these families inform policy and practice for those within it? The paper points to a number of implications for adoption and fostering practice and policies emerging from a more multifaceted understanding of the everyday lives of racially and ethnically mixed families as presented by the authors

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ORCID for Rosalind Edwards: orcid.org/0000-0002-3512-9029

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