Titre du document / Document title

Adoptive parents, adaptive parents : Evaluating the importance of biological ties for parental investment = Parents d'adoption, parents d'adaptation : évaluer l'importance des liens biologiques pour l'investissement parental

Auteur(s) / Author(s)

HAMILTON Laura ⁽¹⁾ ; CHENG Simon ⁽²⁾ ; POWELL Brian ⁽¹⁾ ;

Affiliation(s) du ou des auteurs / Author(s) Affiliation(s)

⁽¹⁾ Indiana University, ETATS-UNIS
⁽²⁾ University of Connecticut, ETATS-UNIS

Résumé / Abstract

Contemporary legal and scholarly debates emphasize the importance of biological parents for children s well-being. Scholarship in this vein often relies on stepparent families even though adoptive families provide an ideal opportunity to explore the role of biology in family life. In this study, we compare two-adoptive-parent families with other families on one key characteristic-parental investment. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten-First Grade Waves (ECLS-K), basic group comparisons reveal an adoptive advantage over all family types. This advantage is due in part to the socioeconomic differences between adoptive and other families. Once we control for these factors, two-adoptive-parent families invest at similar levels as two-biological-parent families but still at significantly higher levels in most resources than other types of families. These findings are inconsistent with the expectations of sociological family structure explanations, which highlight barriers to parental investment in nontraditional families, and evolutionary science's kin selection theory, which maintains that parents are genetically predisposed to invest in biological children. Instead, these patterns suggest that adoptive parents enrich their children s lives to compensate for the lack of biological ties and the extra challenges of adoption.

Revue / Journal Title

American sociological review   ISSN 0003-1224 

Source / Source

2007, vol. 72, n^o1, pp. 95-116 [22 page(s) (article)] (3 p.1/4)

Langue / Language

Anglais

Editeur / Publisher

American Sociological Association, Washington, DC, ETATS-UNIS  (1936) (Revue)

Mots-clés anglais / English Keywords

Kin selection ; Investment ; Longitudinal Analysis ; Social Differentiation ; Stephousehold ; Family Life ; Well-being ; Child ; Biological affiliation ; Adoption ;

Mots-clés français / French Keywords

Parents ; Sélection de parentèle ; Investissement ; Analyse longitudinale ; Différenciation sociale ; Famille recomposée ; Vie familiale ; Bien-être ; Enfant ; Filiation biologique ; Adoption ;

Localisation / Location

INIST-CNRS, Cote INIST : 22326, 35400015973846.0040