College student attitudes toward transracial adoption

College Student Journal, Sept, 2003 by Mark Whatley, Julia N. Jahangardi, Rashonda Ross, David Knox

One hundred and eighty-eight undergraduates at a large southeastern university completed a confidential anonymous questionnaire designed to assess their attitudes toward adopting a child transracially (transracial adoption was defined as the adoption of a child from a race different from that of the adoptive parent). Thirty was the average score (possible range 15-105 with the lower the score the more positive the attitude) reflecting overwhelmingly positive attitudes toward transracial adoption. Significant differences included that females, persons willing to adopt a child at all, interracially experienced daters, and those open to interracial dating were more willing to adopt transracially than men persons rejecting adoption as an optional route to parenthood, persons with no previous interracial dating experience, and persons closed to interracial dating. The findings are consistent with the literature.

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An African-American baby abandoned by his crack-addicted mother and adopted by a white social worker and her husband was the focus of Losing Isaiah (1995 film featuring academy award winning actress Halle Berry). The film gave increased cultural emphasis to the issue of transracial adoption (defined as the adoption of a child from a race different from that of the adoptive parent). Previous research on this issue has concerned social workers attitude/perceptions of transracial adoption (Carter-Black, 2002; Lightfoot, 1989), the prediction of attitudes toward transracial adoption (Hollingsworth, 2000), and the experience of transracial adoption from the point of view of adoptees and their parents (Simon, 1996). This study reflects data from 188 undergraduates who completed the Transracial Adoption Scale developed by Dr. Whatley (Whatley, 2002). Sex, race, religion, membership in a sorority/fraternity, interracial dating experience, openness to interracial dating, parental military background and willingness to adopt if unable to have a child were examined for associations.

Sample and Questionnaire

The sample consisted of 188 undergraduates from East Carolina University who responded to an anonymous questionnaire in the fall of 2002. Sixty-nine percent of the respondents were female; thirty-one percent were male. The mean age of the respondents was 20.75 (SD = 3.18) with most (84%) reporting that they were white; 11%, African American, 1% Asian American; 1% American Indian, 0.5% Hispanic, and 1% indicating they were from other racial/ethnic backgrounds. The college classification of the sample was 15% Freshman, 38% Sophomore, 22% Junior, 25% Senior, with 0.5% unknown. The religious affiliation of the sample was 43% Protestant, 18% Catholic, 1% Jewish, 38% of the sample did not indicate a religious preference. The questionnaire and data collection procedures were approved by the Human Research Committee at East Carolina University; all participants were treated in accordance with accepted ethical protocol.

The questionnaire consisted of 15 background characteristics and The Attitudes Toward Transracial Adoption Scale. For the latter, the participants responded to each of 15 items on a seven point scale from (1) Strongly Disagree to (7) Strongly Agree with lower scores representing more positive attitudes and higher scores representing more negative attitudes toward transracial adoption. The reliability (internal consistency of the items) was .90. The coefficient of variation for the scale was .45. The coefficient of variation allows a comparison and assessment of the amount of variation that exists in a measure (Howell, 1992). The higher the value the more variation exists, and the greater the variation the greater the ability of a measure to discriminate between groups. A one-way analysis of variance was calculated to determine if differences existed in attitudes toward transracial adoption scores among respondents with various background characteristics. An alpha level of .05 was used for all statistical tests and r was calculated as the effect size.

Findings and Discussion

The lowest possible score on the Attitudes Toward Transracial Adoption Scale was 15; the highest possible score was 105; the midpoint, 60. The average score of the 188 respondents was 29.68 (SD = 13.29) reflecting very positives attitudes toward transracial adoption. The scores ranged from 15 to 90.

While race, religion, membership in a sorority/fraternity, and parental military background were not associated with attitudes toward transracial adoption, four significant differences emerged.

1. Females had more positive transracial attitudes than males. The respective means of the women and men were 28.27 and 32.76 reflecting a significant difference (p<.05) in attitudes toward transracial adoption. Since adoption is a "relationship" issue we are not surprised to find that our female respondents were more open to transracial adoption. Previous researchers have documented the relationship focus of women- their value for relationships (Cherry, 1998), time with close friends (Roy et al, 2000) and tendency toward being cooperative (Garza and Borchert, 1990). In addition, women place a higher value on having children than men (American Council on Education and University of California, 2001). Their desire to do so may mitigate any reservations they may have about racial issues. Indeed, they are focused on the role of becoming a mother not becoming the mother of a child of a particular racial background.