Adoption, Transracial

Transracial adoption (TRA), like transnational adoption (which is almost always transracial), is a highly controversial and complex theme in the growing field of adoption studies. Scholars attribute the prolific growth in the numbers of children adopted across racial lines to the end of de jure segregation in the United States in response to the civil rights movement and the overseas child rescue initiatives during and after World War II, the United States–Korean War, and the United States–Vietnam War. This entry discusses the psychology of TRA, especially the impacts for biracial and bicultural children; international and national conventions governing TRA; and controversies about the practice.

In the immediate postwar years, hundreds of Native American children were forcibly adopted into White families and communities where policy makers and ...