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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
William Feigelman, PhD, Sociology Department, Nassau Community College, 1 Education Drive, Garden City, NY 11530 and Gordon Finley, PhD, Department of Psychology, Florida International University, University Park Campus, Miami, FL 33199, 305-348-3190, feigelw@sunynassau.edu.
With divorce and family break-up becoming more widespread it becomes imperative to better understand its ramifications upon various special populations like adopted children. In this presentation we investigate adjustment problems of adopted adolescents whose parents divorced or separated. We explore the validity of a double jeopardy hypothesis, namely, that an adoptee is susceptible to heightened risks of adjustment problems because of a compounding of parental losses; first, they lost their original birth parents; then, second, they experienced diminished contact and or loss when one of their adoptive parents departed. On the other hand, it could be claimed that an adoptee's early losses of original birth parents could help to strengthen their adaptive capacities, to assist them in accepting their losses of a parent through divorce. We investigate these competing hypotheses with data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. We compare and contrast the adaptations of adoptees living with one adoptive parent (N=145) with those of children living with one biological parent in a step- or single-parent biologic family (N=7,457). The Add Health study included nationally representative data of the groups under investigation. In the home interview survey, conducted in 1994 with more than 20,000 youngsters in grades 7-12, adolescents responded to a comprehensive survey of their mental and physical health and at-risk behaviors. Controlling for potential confounding influences of age, gender and social class, we explore whether adoptees whose parents separated are at heightened risks for youth problems than their counterparts living in one-parent biologic families.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Adult and Child Mental Health, Adoption
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.