Children’s and parents’ thoughts and feelings about adoption, birth culture identity and discrimination in families with internationally adopted children Marta Reinoso*, Femmie Juffer† and Wendy Tieman† *Department of Personality, Faculty of Psychology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, and †Centre for Child & Family Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands ABSTRACT We examined the perceptions of adoption and related issues in 68 families with internationally adopted children in Spain (48 transracial and 20 same-race adoptions). The adopted children, between the ages of 8 and 12 years, and their parents answered questions about the children’s thoughts and feelings about adoption. Descriptive data and scores on four scales – family, adoption, birth culture identity and discrimination – were obtained. Compared with same-race adoptees, transracial adoptees scored significantly higher on birth culture iden- tity and perceived discrimination. High levels of convergence between the children’s and parents’ viewpoints on the experiences of adoption and related issues were found. Nevertheless, the adopted children scored higher than their parents on birth culture identity, suggesting that at this age adoptive parents may underestimate their children’s connection to their cultural origins. In contrast, the same- race adoptees scored significantly lower on perceived discrimination than their mothers. We conclude that at this age adoptive parents should acknowledge their adopted child’s daily-life experiences regarding cultural identity with the birth country and discrimination. Correspondence: Marta Reinoso, Department of Personality, Faculty of Psychology, University of Barcelona, Passeig de la Vall d’Hebron 171, Barcelona 08035, Spain E-mail: mreinoso@ub.edu Keywords: being adopted, birth culture identity, discrimination, international adoption, middle childhood, race/ethnicity Accepted for publication: January 2012 INTRODUCTION While psychological outcomes of internationally adopted children have received a great deal of atten- tion (for a review, see Palacios & Brodzinsky 2010), relatively few studies have examined their experiences related to their adoptive status. How do adoptees come to terms with being adopted and looking differ- ent? In this study, we examined children’s and parents’ thoughts and feelings about adoption and related issues. The children, aged 8–12 years, were all internationally adopted to Spain. As Brodzinsky et al. (1992, p. 7) stated, ‘Being adopted can be something that colours a person’s relationship with their adoptive parents, their emerg- ing sense of self, and the intimate relationships they forge for the rest of their life’. The issue of being adopted is one that will be returned to, consciously and unconsciously, at various points in an adoptee’s development. In middle childhood, adopted chil- dren’s understanding and appreciation of the implica- tions of adoption grow at a profound rate. Children enter what Piaget (1954) called the period of concrete operations, which enables them to understand the world in a logical manner. This is when adopted chil- dren begin to appreciate the uniqueness of this family status and to consider the meaning of being adopted (Brodzinsky et al. 1984, 1992). They start to recognize that adoption implies not just building a family (their adoptive family) but also losing a family (their birth Author’s note: Marta Reinoso was supported by the Comis- sionat per a Universitats i Recerca del DIUE de la Generali- tat de Catalunya and the European Social Funds. Femmie Juffer was supported by Wereldkinderen. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2206.2012.00841.x 264 Child and Family Social Work 2013, 18, pp 264–274 © 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd