PhD defended at:
Defended:
Dissertation Abstract
The purpose of this qualitative content analysis study was to determine if adoptive parents’ self-attributions for the adoption of Chinese daughters were present in children’s stories. Guided by past research, this study seeks to bridge attributions and content analysis of media. A total of 40 Chinese-born adoption stories were coded independently by two researchers. Twelve stories (30% of the sample) contained parents’ self attributions for adoption. Three themes were identified within the codes: (a) individuals/families’ needs; (b) mutual/children’s needs; and (c) fate/destiny. These themes are in confluence with prior research on actual adoptive parents. A discussion of the study and recommendations for future research are offered.
Please note that the dissertation was completed in Fall 2014 but it was not published at that time.
