Chatting Online With My Other Mother: Adoptive family views and experiences of the use of traditional and technological forms of post-adoption contact

Chatting Online With My Other Mother: Adoptive family views and experiences of the use of traditional and technological forms of post-adoption contact

Sarah Kathryn Greenhow · Durham University

This doctorate examined how online communication changes contact with birth relatives. It combined an adopter survey with interviews involving adoptive parents and six adopted young people. The research described opportunities for identity exploration and more personal relationships, alongside difficulties arising from unmediated contact. Experiences varied with existing relationships and family circumstances.

Limitations: Direct adoptee evidence came from only six young people and was combined with parent evidence. Findings cannot establish the prevalence or effects of online contact among all adoptees. The thesis overlaps the Greenhow contact journal papers. The catalogue and university briefing report different survey totals, so no survey sample size is reproduced here. A secondary supervisor was affiliated with DFW Adoption, an adoption agency. This records a supervisory relationship; agency commissioning or control of the analysis has not been established.

Research type

Mixed-methods doctoral thesis

Source reviewed

Abstract

Peer reviewed

No

Age group

Adolescents / Adults