Record Details

Family Life Project: A Longitudinal Adoption Study, 1969-1989

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Family Life Project: A Longitudinal Adoption Study, 1969-1989
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/CRFHDU
 
Creator Chicago Child Care Society; Shireman, Joan; and Vroegh, Karen
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description This 20-year longitudinal study, begun in 1969-1970, examines the influence of adoption on child and family development in intraracial, transracial, single-parent, and two-parent adoptive and biological families. Data collection included child, parent, and family interviews; and child completion of psychological tests, and questionnaires about racial and gender identity (e.g., Doll Puzzle, Doll Test, Semantic Differential Pictures, Toy Preferential Pictures, Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire), intelligence (e.g., Preschool Attainment Record, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and the Slosson Intelligence Test for Children and Adults), and social maturity (i.e., the Vineland Social Maturity Scale).



Collectively, the study samples consisted of 158 African-American children ranging from birth to age two, and with approximately equal numbers of females and males. Seventy-five percent of adopting families were from the upper middle and middle class, and 25% were working class.


The study participants were selected from single-parent, transracial, and traditional adoptive placements made by two Chicago agencies. The study included five groups: single parents at adoption; white parents transracially adopting; African-American parents adopting African-American children; single parents of biological children; and two-parent African-American families with biological child. Data collection has been continuous over 20 years with data collection periods spanning 1969-1972 across groups at Time I; 1973-1976 for all groups at Time II; 1977-1981 at Time III; 1982-1987 for Time IV; and 1987-1989 for Time V.



The Murray Research Archive holds original record paper data from each cohort and each wave.
 
Subject Social Sciences
 
Type Longitudinal