Names in adoption law and policy: representations of family, rights and identities

Authors:
Jane Pilcher Associate Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University, UK

Search for other papers by Jane Pilcher in
Current site
Google Scholar Close
and
Amanda Coffey Professor, Deputy Vice Chancellor and Provost at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

Search for other papers by Amanda Coffey in
Current site
Google Scholar Close
Article Category:
Research Article
Copyright:
© Policy Press 2024
Online Publication Date:
11 Nov 2022
Pages:
105–120
Publisher:
Policy Press
Volume/Issue:
Volume 13: Issue 1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1332/204674322X16651391589015
Restricted access
Get eTOC alerts
Rights and permissions Cite this article
Buy article/chapter (
GBP  £25.00
)

Names have heightened importance in adoption, affecting the identities of individuals who are adopted and adoptive family making. In this article, we use critical discourse analysis to gauge how names, and especially children’s forenames, are addressed in the specificities of legal and policy texts governing and guiding the milieu of people affected by adoption in England. We argue that the inclusions, omissions and opacity of content on names we uncover are outcomes of underlying representations of ‘family’ within the texts, whereby ‘family surnaming’ is constructed as the pre-eminent naming issue in adoption, above children’s forename-based identity rights. Our focus on names in adoption advances sociological understandings of the power of names in representing family relationships and individual identities, and of how official discourses of law and policy can privilege some types of relationships over others, and the rights of some family members over others.

  • Ball, C. (2005) The Adoption and Children Act 2002. A critical examination, Adoption & Fostering, 29(2): 6–17. doi: 10.1177/030857590502900203

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Ball, S. (1993) What is policy? Texts, trajectories and toolboxes, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 13(2): 10–17. doi: 10.1080/0159630930130203

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Beek, M. and Schofield, G. (2002) Foster carers’ perspectives on permanence. A focus group study, Adoption & Fostering, 26(2): 14–27. doi: 10.1177/030857590202600204

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Brain, W. and Dibben, E. (2010) Identity theft by another name?, Community Care, (1835): 18, www.communitycare.co.uk/2010/09/10/identity-theft-by-another-name/#.YyR7pC0w1TY.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) Thematic Analysis, London: SAGE.

  • Carling, A., Duncan, S. and Edwards, R. (2002) (eds) Analysing Families, Morality and Rationality in Policy and Practice, London: Routledge.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Carter, J. and Duncan, S. (2018) Reinventing Couples, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

  • Coram (2019) Brothers and sisters are stronger together than apart, http://bit.ly/2YCwMxq.

  • Cornford, J., Baines, S. and Wilson, R. (2013) Representing the family: how does the state ‘think family’?, Policy & Politics, 41(1): 1–18. doi: 10.1332/030557312X645838

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Crossley, S. (2016) Realising the (troubled) family, crafting the Neo-liberal state, Family, Relationships and Societies, 5(2): 263–79. doi: 10.1332/204674315X14326465757666

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Davies, H. (2011) Sharing surnames: children, family and kinship, Sociology, 45: 554–61. doi: 10.1177/0038038511406600

  • DfE (Department for Education) (2013) Statutory Guidance on Adoption, London: DfE.

  • DfE (2014) Adoption: National Minimum Standards, London: DfE.

  • DfE (2019) Children Looked After in England (Including Adoption), Year Ending 31 March 2019, London: DfE.

  • Doughty, J. (2015) Myths and misunderstandings in adoption law and policy, Child & Family Law Quarterly, 27(4): 331–54, www.familylaw.co.uk/news_and_comment/myths-and-misunderstanding-in-adoption-law-and-policy-2015-cflq-331.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Eekelaar, J. (2020) The law, gender and truth, Human Rights Law Review, 20: 797–809. doi: 10.1093/hrlr/ngaa038

  • Fairclough, N. (2010) Critical Discourse Analysis, 2nd edn, Abingdon: Routledge.

  • Featherstone, B., Gupta, A. and Mills, S. (2018) The Role of the Social Worker in Adoption: Ethics and Human Rights. An Enquiry, London: British Association of Social Workers.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Finch, J. (2008) Naming names: kinship, individuality and personal names, Sociology, 42(4): 709–25. doi: 10.1177/0038038508091624

  • Garrett, P. (2000) The hidden history of the PFIs: the repatriation of unmarried mothers and their children from England to Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s, Immigrants and Minorities, 19(3): 25–44. doi: 10.1080/02619288.2000.9974998

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Grotevant, H.D. (1997) Coming to terms with adoption: the construction of identity from adolescence into adulthood, Adoption Quarterly, 1(1): 3–27. doi: 10.1300/J145v01n01_02

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Horstman, H.K., Colaner, C.W., Nelson, L.R., Bish, A. and Hays, A. (2018) Communicatively constructing birth family relationships in open adoptive families: naming, connecting, and relational functioning, Journal of Family Communication, 18(2): 138–52. doi: 10.1080/15267431.2018.1429444

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Jacobson, H. (2008) Culture Keeping: White Mothers, International Adoption, and the Negotiation of Family Difference, Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Johnson, J.L., McAndrew, F.T. and Harris, P.B. (1991) Socio-biology and the naming of adopted and natural children, Ethology and Socio-Biology, 12(5): 365–75. doi: 10.1016/0162-3095(91)90031-K

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Jones, C. (2016) Openness in adoption: challenging the narrative of historical progress, Child & Family Social Work, 21(1): 85–93. doi: 10.1111/cfs.12113

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Jones, C. and Hackett, S. (2011) The role of ‘family practices’ and ‘displays of family’ in the creation of adoptive kinship, British Journal of Social Work, 41(1): 40–56. doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcq017

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kirton, D. (2013) Kinship by design’ in England: reconfiguring adoption from Blair to the coalition, Child & Family Social Work, 18: 97–106. doi: 10.1111/cfs.12027

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kirton, D. (2020) Adoption wars: inequality, child welfare and (social) justice, Families, Relationships and Societies, 9(2): 253–68. doi: 10.1332/204674319X15492792975248

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Klett-Davis, M. (2012) A critical analysis of family, Families, Relationships and Societies, 1(1): 121–31. doi: 10.1332/204674312X633207

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kornitzer, M. (1968) Adoption and Family Life, London: Putnam.

  • Lindsay, J. and Dempsey, D. (2017) First names and social distinction: Middle-class naming practices in Australia, Journal of Sociology, 53(3): 577–91. doi: 10.1177/1440783317690925

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • MacDonald, M. (2017) ‘A picture of who we are as a family’: conceptualizing Post-adoption contact as practices of family display, Child & Family Social Work, 22: 34–43. doi: 10.1111/cfs.12248

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • McMurray, I., Connolly, H., Preston-Shoot, M. and Wigley, V. (2011) Shards of the old looking glass: restoring the significance of identity in promoting positive outcomes for looked-after children, Child & Family Social Work, 16(2): 210–18. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2206.2010.00733.x

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Nugent, C. (2010) Children’s surnames, moral dilemmas: accounting for the predominance of fathers’ surnames amongst children, Gender & Society, 24: 499–525. doi: 10.1177/0891243210376380

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • O’Halloran, K. (2015) The Politics of Adoption, New York: Springer.

  • Ostler, T. (2013) Foster children who decide to be called by a new first name: links to extreme defences, identity and attachment, Adoption & Fostering, 37(4): 339–51. doi: 10.1177/0308575913508720

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Patterson, C.J. and Farr, R.H. (2017) What shall we call ourselves? Last names among lesbian, gay, and heterosexual couples and their adopted children, Journal of GLBT Family Studies, 13(2): 97–113. doi: 10.1080/1550428X.2016.1169239

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Pilcher, J. (2016) Names, bodies and identities, Sociology, 50(4): 764–79. doi: 10.1177/0038038515582157

  • Pilcher, J. (2017) Names and ‘doing gender’: how forenames and surnames contribute to gender identities, difference, and inequalities, Sex Roles, 77: 812–22. doi: 10.1007/s11199-017-0805-4

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Pilcher, J., Hooley, Z. and Coffey, A. (2020) Names and naming in adoption: birth heritage and family-making, Child & Family Social Work, 25(3): 568–75. doi: 10.1111/cfs.12728

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Prior, L., Hughes, D. and Peckham, S. (2012) The discursive turn in policy analysis and the validation of policy stories, Journal of Social Policy, 41(2): 271–89. doi: 10.1017/S0047279411000821

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Reynolds, J.D., Ponterotto, J.G., Park-Taylor, J. and Takooshian, H. (2017) Transracial identities: the meaning of names and the process of name reclamation for Korean American adoptees, Qualitative Psychology, 7(1): 78–92. doi: 10.1037/qup0000115

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Samuels, J. (2018) Adoption in the Digital Age, London: Palgrave.

  • Scherman, R. and Harré, N. (2004) Intercountry adoption of Eastern European children in New Zealand: parents’ attitudes towards the importance of culture, Adoption & Fostering, 28(3): 62–72. doi: 10.1177/030857590402800308

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Shanahan, S. (2005) The changing meaning of family: individual rights and Irish adoption policy 1949–99, Journal of Family History, 30(1): 86–108. doi: 10.1177/0363199004270516

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Sinclair, I., Wilson, K. and Gibbs, I. (2001) ‘A life more ordinary’. What children want from foster placement, Adoption & Fostering, 25(4): 17–26. doi: 10.1177/030857590102500404

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Suter, E.A. (2012) Negotiating identity and pragmatism: parental treatment of international adoptees’ birth culture names, Journal of Family Communication, 12(3): 209–26. doi: 10.1080/15267431.2012.686940

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Thomas, C. (2013) Adoption for Looked After Children: Messages from Research. An Overview of the Adoption Research Initiative, London: BAAF.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Thomson, P. (2011) A Foucauldian approach to discourse analysis, [blog], patthomson.net.

  • United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) http://bit.ly/334Z5Eq

  • Watson, D., Latter, S. and Bellew, R. (2015) Adopters’ views on their children’s life story books, Adoption & Fostering, 39(2): 119–34. doi: 10.1177/0308575915588723

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Welbourne, P. (2002) Adoption and the rights of children in the UK, The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 10: 269–89.

  • Willig, C. (2013) Discourses and discourse analysis, in U. Flick (ed) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis, London: SAGE, pp 341–53.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
Jane Pilcher Associate Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University, UK

Search for other papers by Jane Pilcher in
Current site
Google Scholar Close
and
Amanda Coffey Professor, Deputy Vice Chancellor and Provost at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

Search for other papers by Amanda Coffey in
Current site
Google Scholar Close

jane.pilcher@ntu.ac.uk
amanda.coffey@uwe.ac.uk

Content Metrics

May 2022 onwards Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 2317 1092 27
Full Text Views 832 83 3
PDF Downloads 644 106 3

Altmetrics

Dimensions

Cover Families, Relationships and Societies
Families, Relationships and Societies
An international journal of research and debate