Blood parenthood and the hierarchies of dispossession in English adoption cases, 1946–70
Using adoption cases, press coverage and medical, sociological and legal reports, this historical study examined changing definitions of child welfare between 1946 and 1970. The author argues that courts increasingly used medical opinion about children’s psychological welfare to justify adoption without parental consent, while some legal and philanthropic voices challenged coercive practices.
Limitations: Documentary analysis of a historical legal system, not direct adoptee interviews or a measure of adoptees’ later outcomes. The interpretation is the author’s analysis of selected historical sources. Published in 2026, it studies events before the current fifty-year publication window.
- Research type
- Historical documentary research
- Source reviewed
- Abstract
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Age group
- Children
Study context and review
Age group as recorded: Children
Adoption context: Historical domestic adoption
Programme: Not recorded
Institutional context: No relationship identified in the material checked
No adoption-sector organisational relationship identified from metadata reviewed. Funding and conflicts were not comprehensively audited; this is not confirmation of institutional independence.
Bibliographic screening. Bibliographic relationships are not a bias or safety rating.
Topics: adoption law, Consent, Forced adoption, historical adoption, research methodology
Review scope: Source checked: Abstract. This does not imply full-text or independent human verification.
Country as recorded: England
- Funding
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Commissioner
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Funder role
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Declared conflicts
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Recruitment
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Adoptee involvement
- Not yet checked for this entry
Entry: study_4a44ec1237f119fd