We Are the World: an Exploratory Study of Communication in Families Who Adopt Cross Culturally

Date of Graduation

Summer 1991

Degree

Master of Arts in Communication

Department

Communication

Committee Chair

Charlene Berquist

Abstract

This thesis is an exploratory study of how families who adopt cross culturally manage through communication issues of race, ethnicity, and culture within the family. While studies on adoptive families deal primarily with social and psychological adjustment issues, few studies on the family explore communication in adoptive families, and even fewer explore communication in cross cultural adoptive families. Families of this type were contacted and interviewed for this study. Additionally, the researcher administered the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (Form A) to children in these families for purposes of comparison. The present study was undertaken to discover if these families discuss issues related to the racial, ethnic, or cultural backgrounds of family members; to find out if these families or individual members have faced racism or discrimination; to assess how these families manage communication about these issues, and to determine how these families and their children perceive themselves.

Subject Categories

Communication

Copyright

© Lynn K McClintock-Borich

Citation-only

Dissertation/Thesis

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