Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T20:51:19.187Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Adoption Policy in Great Britain and North America*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

H. David Kirk  and
Susan A. Mcdaniel
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper has two purposes. First, to explore what existing adoption legislation may indicate about the meaning and function of adoption practices in North America and Great Britain. Second, to consider some possible policy implications revealed by clearer understanding of the social meaning of existing adoption laws. The first part of the paper summarizes briefly the history of legal adoption. The second examines what is explicitly and implicitly revealed by adoption law and policies about the social purposes of adoption and about prevailing social values concerning the family. The third part examines possible avenues of policy change in North America.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , January 1984 , pp. 75 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Boas, F. (1888), ‘The Central Eskimo’, in Sixth Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, Government Printing Office, Washington D.C.Google Scholar
de, F. Coulanges (1873), The Ancient City, Doubleday, New York.Google Scholar
Firth, R. (1936), We, The Tikopia, George Allen and Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Hemphill, S., McDaniel, S. and Kirk, H.D. (1981), ‘Adoption in Canada: a neglected area of data collection for research’, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 12:4, 509–15.Google Scholar
Hepworth, H. Philip (1980). Foster Care and Adoption in Canada, The Canadian Council on Social Development, Ottawa.Google Scholar
Kirk, H. David (1964a), Shared Fate: A Theory of Adoption and Mental Health, The Free Press, New York.Google Scholar
Kirk, H. David (1964b, 1971), ‘Differential Sex Preference in Family Formation’, Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 1:1, 31–48; reprinted in expanded form in Gallagher, J.E. and Lambert, R.D. (eds)(1971), Social Process and Institution: the Canadian Case, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Toronto.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
David, H. Kirk (1964c), ‘The Impact of Drastic Change on Social Relations’, in Zollschan, G.K. and Hirsch, W. (eds), Explorations in Social Change, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.Google Scholar
David, H. Kirk (1981), Adoptive Kinship: A Modern Institution in Need of Reform, Butterworths, Toronto.Google Scholar
Lowie, R. (1930), ‘Adoption — Primitive’, Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 1. The Macmillan Co., New York, 459–60.Google Scholar
Weckler, J. E. (1953), ‘Adoption on Mokil’, American Anthropologist. 60:4, 555–68.Google Scholar