Adoption in the Era of Secrecy: Practical and Ethical Challenges Facing Adult Adoptees in the Search for Birth Families
Interviews with eleven adults explored how they sought birth information and contacted relatives after growing up with adoption secrecy. Narrative analysis using a life-course perspective described barriers to information, limited emotional support and decisions about searching. Some participants continued their searches without professional help.
Limitations: A small retrospective snowball sample of adults aged 44–78 adopted in the UK before 1975. Experiences cannot establish prevalence or describe present-day services. The reviewed material does not give a country-by-country recruitment breakdown.
- Research type
- Qualitative narrative study
- Source reviewed
- Abstract
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Age group
- Adults / Older adults
Study context and review
Age group as recorded: Adults / older adults
Adoption context: Domestic adoption
Programme: Robinson adult adoption life-course research
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: adoptee voice, ageing, identity, Records access, reunion, search, secrecy
Review scope: Source checked: Abstract. This does not imply full-text or independent human verification.
Country as recorded: UK; regional breakdown unverified
- 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_a528e767c66445d1