Ethically Informed Practice with Families Formed via International Adoption

Linking Care Ethics with Narrative Approaches to Social Welfare Practice

Bibliographic Data

ID12901823
AuthorsJanet Shapiro (0000-0002-2946-3418, Bryn Mawr College, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume6
Issue4
Pages333-350
Publication date2011-07-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthics and Social Welfare (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-6535 • E-ISSN: 1749-6543
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17496535.2011.591812
OpenAlexW1980946655
LanguageEN
References cited36

Many authors have described the ethical issues associated with international adoption for all members of the adoption triad, including adoptive parents, birth parents and the adopted child, and for both sending and receiving countries. This paper explores how political variants of care ethics, combined with a narrative approach to practice, can be used as a conceptual framework for ethically informed practice with families formed via international adoption. Political variants of care ethics foreground the particularized needs of the individual, but also take into account the broader social, political, economic and cultural dynamics in which the experience of individuals occurs. This framework is particularly applicable to collaborative work with individuals or groups, such as families formed via international adoption, whose experience is both highly individualized and shaped by broader contexts and issues of social justice. This paper describes how changes in the social construction of international adoption have meaning for applied ethics and practice. Political variants of care ethics are then explored as a framework for ethical decision making. Finally, the relevance of a narrative, approach to practice is considered. This approach focuses on understanding the needs and experiences of families from their own points of view and within the social, economic, cultural and political contexts in which they have lived; linking a relationship-based, narrative approach to practice to important assumptions in many models of care ethics

Engineering ethics · Environmental ethics · Meaning (existential · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Relevance (law · Sociology · Child Welfare and Adoption · Family and Disability Support Research · Law · Psychology · Reproductive Health and Technologies · Social Work