A child for every family? Characterizations of “adoptable” foster children in online permanency advocacy publications

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of children in need of adoption from the U.S. foster care system, only one of every 28 individuals who contact an adoption agency adopt from foster care. In response, adoption professionals create photolistings to maximize the pool of available prospective adoptive families and enhance the visibility of fostered youth. Yet, creating photolistings is challenging because professionals must navigate helping to place children without exploiting or misrepresenting them. Framed by relational dialectics theory, a contrapuntal analysis of 104 photolistings examined the discursive tensions of what it means to be an “adoptable” child. Findings revealed three discourses that constitute meaning: (1) discourse of child as unadoptable, (2) discourse of child as special, and (3) discourse of child as typical. The findings illustrate triadic interplay of all three discourses, wherein framing a child as special and/or typical counters culturally pervasive and damaging assumptions that fostered youth might be unadoptable or less adoptable than other children. Theoretical, methodological, and practical applications are discussed.

Keywords

Contrapuntal analysis family communication foster adoption photolistings relational dialectics theory

Jesse¹—is a sweet and active child. He seeks out love and affection and can be very friendly. Like any child, he has a hard time sitting still for long periods of time and would much rather be involved in a fun activity. He loves going to school. Jesse has a hearing impairment and is provided minor modifications at school to help him in the classroom. When he is in a good mood, he can be helpful and respectful. When he is upset, he may be demanding and impulsive. Generally, Jesse gets along great with his peers, although at times he can become frustrated and challenging in his behavior. Jesse may have significant changes in mood compared to others his age. He also can be very self-conscious, but with a little love, consistency and attention, these behaviors may subside.

—photolisting on www.afamilyforeverychild.org

Approximately 100,000 of the fostered youth in the U.S. foster care system are, like Jesse in the preceding epigraph, awaiting adoption into permanent families (AdoptUSKids, 2018b; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 2018). Despite the prevalence of children in need of adoption, for every 28 individuals who contact a child welfare agency, only one will adopt a child from foster care (Wilson et al., 2005). High attrition is attributed to several factors including (1) frustration with emotion-laden initial contact as well as (2) the need for increased recruitment and retention, training, services, and emotional support (Chanmugam et al., 2017; Wilson et al., 2005). These statistics are particularly troublesome considering children who reside in foster care are at increased risk compared to their nonfostered peers for experiencing negative psychological, physical, emotional, behavioral, relational, and educational outcomes (Kools et al., 2009; Zill, 2011). Furthermore, youth who age out of the foster care system often find themselves with limited resources, support, and/or education as well as an increased likelihood of early parenthood, underemployment, problems with the justice system, homelessness, and mental health issues (see Eastman et al., 2017). Thus, family permanency—via adoption for approximately a quarter of fostered youth—is a primary outcome goal of foster care (DHHS, 2017), and it becomes imperative to garner understanding of what factors enhance and hinder family permanency. In this vein, the present study aims to shed light on how children are framed as “adoptable” in photolistings.

To help place children with permanent families, adoption professionals engage Internet-based photolistings programs. Photolistings of children awaiting adoption are typically authored by adoption professionals, who are the children’s caseworkers, and used as a recruitment strategy to maximize the pool of available prospective adoptive families and to enhance the visibility of fostered youth (AdoptUSKids, 2018a; Freundlich et al., 2007). Photolistings tend to include a photo, are one to two paragraphs long (including age, ethnic background, developmental status, some personal interests, and some description of the child’s personality/needs), and often appear to be constructed absent the children’s input. Indeed, criticisms of photolistings include accusations that they violate children’s privacy and burden caseworkers (Freundlich et al., 2007) as well as commodify and market children online (Milovidov & Treitler, 2014; Thomas, 2015). Consequently, adoption professionals might be in a particularly tight bind of wanting to help children find placement without exploiting them.

Connecting fostered youth with families also comes with additional obstacles. At least 40–47% of children in the foster care system have a disability (Powers et al., 2012). In a recent study, O’Driscoll and Mercer’s (2015) participants reported that “there is nothing worse than having a child with a learning disability” (p. 25). Indeed, sentiments such as this allude to a larger discourse of family perfectionism informed by pressures to have an “ideal” family (see Baxter et al., 2009), expectations of parenthood (see Dillion, 2012; S. Hays, 1996), and assumptions of physical and mental ability (see A. Hays & Colaner, 2016). Thus, adoption professionals might be caught in a difficult position of creating photolistings that resonate with potential parents’ desires for a(n ideal or perfect) family and also managing realistic expectations about what adopting a particular child might mean. In light of this difficult negotiation, we turn to a theory of meaning-making that illuminates the interplay of competing, potentially contradictory, discourses: relational dialectics theory (RDT; Baxter, 2011). Through this framework, we explore how (foster) children are constructed as “adoptable” in photolistings.

Understanding this question might yield both theoretical and practical applications for those invested in finding permanent families for fostered youth. In addition, understanding how children are represented in these photolistings illuminates cultural assumptions about a child’s worth and contextualizes the difficult positions adoption professionals must negotiate in finding permanent homes. In conducting this research, we add to a dearth of extant literature on foster care adoption (see Suter et al., 2014), which scholars argue is qualitatively different from adopting internationally or private domestically (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2012; DHHS, 2017). The present study also answers the specific call of Thomas and Scharp (2017) who argue for the importance of understanding “the ways in which adoption and/or ‘adoptable’ children are constituted in the text of photolistings” (p. 61). Toward these aims, we begin by calling attention to the pressures of family perfection before turning to an overview of adoption in the foster care system.

The pressure of family perfection

Existing communication research consistently points to structural definitions (i.e., those that privilege blood and law) as the dominant cultural understanding of what it means to be a family, which alternative family forms must resist to gain legitimacy (see Baxter et al., 2014; Scharp & Thomas, 2016; Suter et al., 2014). As such, family constellations that lack (culturally idealized) blood ties often are positioned as “second best,” and some members go to great lengths to reconnect with their biological roots (see Baxter et al., 2014, 2012; Scharp, 2013). As Galvin (2014) argues, when families deviate or seek to deviate from structural definitions, they must negotiate how to construct their identity both inside their family and to outside members.

A. Hays and Colaner (2016) further posit that in addition to the absence of blood and law, the presence of disability renders a family more discourse dependent. In other words, when a family violates a perceived cultural norm (such as a family with a member who has a disability), they must rely on discourse to construct their internal/external identities as well as respond to ideology that positions them as less than ideal (see Galvin, 2014; Scharp & Thomas, 2016; Suter et al., 2014). Women who give birth to premature babies, for example, experience an ambiguous loss; a simultaneous joy that their children survived but also grief about their children’s health and jealousy of other women who had full-term pregnancies (Golish & Powell, 2003). This finding suggests that women have particular ideas about their birthing experience and might struggle when those expectations are violated. Furthermore, women with prenatal and postpartum depression who fail to ascribe to idealized notions of motherhood (see S. Hays, 1996) suffer from guilt and embarrassment (Scharp & Thomas, 2017). Thus, in addition to not ascribing to structural definitions, any deviance or hint at family imperfection can create internal guilt and external shame for a family’s identity (Brohan et al., 2010; Griffiths et al., 2006). Taken together, a lack of blood ties, (potential) presence of a disability, and expectations for parent perfectionism serve as a foundation that creates added pressure for families to behave and present themselves in idealized ways.

In light of the pressures to adhere to an idealized presentation of family, it might come as no surprise that some parents even question whether to have children at all. For example, O’Driscoll and Mercer (2015) interviewed women over 45 years old who had not undergone in vitro fertilization and were not biologically unable to have children about why they chose to be childfree. They found that one of the primary reasons these women chose not to have children resulted from a fear that they would not have the perfect family. One woman reported, “a non-perfect child means you have become an outcast in the community” (p. 25). Indeed, general findings from their study suggest that parents are under tremendous pressure to have ideal children and be an ideal family. Taken together, this evidence points to a discourse of family perfectionism that not only creates pressure for families that deviate from traditional conceptualizations but also exacerbates stigma surrounding disability and creates standards for children that might be unreasonable or potentially damaging. In the present study, given the absence of blood ties, expectations of parents, and the prevalence of disability diagnoses, ideology surrounding family perfection might well operate to complicate or undermine processes and experiences of adoption through the foster care system.

Adoption through the foster care system

Children enter the foster care system when they are unable to live safely with their families of origin (DHHS, 2017). Despite the conditions that prompted removal, approximately half of the time, the primary goal is to reunify children with their families of origin (see Argys & Duncan, 2013; DHHS, 2018). For those seeking to adopt from the foster care system, the goal of reunification can create problems. Indeed, Zill (2011) found that potential adoptive parents are often frustrated by federal laws and child welfare agency practices because of the time-consuming process and unrealistic and impractical efforts to reunite families.

When reunification efforts fail and children become available for adoption, child welfare professionals seek other permanent homes for children. Thomas and Scharp (2017) argue that the professionals tasked with finding placements, who tend to lack advanced training and are generally inexperienced with adoption advocacy (National Association of Social Workers, Center for Workforce Studies, 2006), lack a general recruitment model. Thus, child welfare professionals likely attempt to cast a wide net rather than targeting a particular family for a child’s adoption, the latter of which has been illustrated as more effective (Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, 2011). Communication research also emphasizes the importance of bringing together a particular child and family; adoptive parents tell stories that emphasize “the inevitability and rightness of the children’s entrances into their adoptive families—the conviction that this particular child was supposed to join this particular family” (emphasis in original; Krusiewicz & Wood, 2001, p. 793). Taken together, adoption professionals must negotiate creating photolistings to help place children without exploiting them, creating a wide enough net to attract multiple families while being specific enough that potential adoptive parents can connect with a specific child and manage expectations in a culture that values perfection. Indeed, photolistings are created in, and must attend to, multiple goals and understandings that circulate in a conflict-riddled context and that speak to multiple ideologies that already inform meanings of family. In light of these tensions, and to critically examine how adoptable children are constructed, we appropriate a relational theory of meaning-making that exposes discursive conflicts that create meaning within texts. Specifically, we draw on RDT to examine the interpenetration of dominant and marginalized discourses as seen in photolistings.

RDT

RDT in its current form attends to the power disparities in discourses as they interplay to make meaning (Baxter, 2011). Discourses are the foundational building blocks of meaning which Baxter defines as a system of meaning, ideology, or paradigm constructed in communication.

The utterance chain

Essential to understanding RDT is the utterance chain. An utterance is a turn in talk where, in this study, meanings of adoptable children can emerge (Bakhtin, 1975/1981). As with all RDT research, the utterance is the unit of analysis, in this case, a photolisting. Collectively, these photolistings do not exist in isolation. Rather, they are merely a link in a larger (utterance) chain of communication (Bakhtin, 1986). Specifically, there are four links of the utterance chain. Two of these links represent a response to what has been said before (already-spoken) and the other two speak to anticipation of a hearer’s response (not-yet-spoken). As Baxter (2011) describes, the utterance chain is made up of responses based on and in anticipation of both cultural understandings (distal links) and idiosyncratic relationships (proximal links). Because the authors do not know the adoption professionals who write the photolistings personally, and more importantly, because we are interested in what the culture deems to be an adoptable child, we specifically focus on the distal links of the utterance chain. More plainly, distal links of the utterance chain help contextualize the culture’s attitude about a particular meaning.

Interplay

RDT has evolved since its original conception to emphasize that some discourses are dominant (centripetal), whereas others are marginal (centrifugal). It is in the competition of these discourses as they intertwine and vie for power that new meaning has the potential to emerge (Baxter). Another important clarification focuses on what is struggling: it is not individuals or even their wants and needs but rather the discourses themselves (Baxter). This emphasis on ideology is important because the theory then lends itself to the study of adoptable children in general as opposed to a specific child in the foster care system.

Understanding the larger meaning of adoptable children contributes by (1) exposing the cultural discourses that promote and constrain the ways people talk about children and their worth, (2) providing insight into the struggles adoption professionals might face in writing about each child, and (3) elucidating opportunities for adoption professionals to align their characterizations of fostered youth with cultural ideals. Toward making these contributions, we ask the following research question:

RQ: How, if at all, do discourses interplay to construct the meaning of “adoptable” children in online photolistings that promote adoption through the foster care system?

Method

Narratives as a site for interplay

Unlike many qualitative research studies that might require interviews to understand particular experiences, scholars who appropriate RDT often select online texts as their source of data (e.g., Baxter et al., 2014; Scharp, 2013; Suter et al., 2014; Thomas & Scharp, 2015). Because we are interested in the distal links of the utterance chain and the multiple discourses that emerge to make meaning of adoptable children generally, after receiving institutional review board exemption, we randomly selected 104 online photolistings (100 plus 4 extra, collected in case any needed to be excluded from the data set such as in the case of a reposting). We chose to take sample from www.afamilyforeverychild.org because the site contains public photolistings that highlight and describe children available for foster adoption from across the U.S. After downloading the texts into a Word document, all identifying information was replaced with pseudonyms or deleted.

Identifying discourses

To analyze the data corpus, the authors engaged in a contrapuntal analysis, the corresponding method of RDT. To conduct a contrapuntal analysis, discourses must first be identified. Identifying discourses is an iterative process and in the present study was based on a procedure developed by Braun and Clarke (2006). First, the authors familiarized themselves with the photolistings by reading and rereading the corpus. Second, we began an iterative process of coding all the segments of the text that responded to the question, “What is/makes an adoptable child?” After coding the text, we began to group similar codes into larger themes. These themes were then organized into larger systems of meaning (i.e., discourses). For example, talk about a child’s physical appearance coalesced with other ways of presenting a child as attractive, which was considered to be part of the larger discourse marking children as adoptable because they are special. As part of the verification process, the authors then met to discuss the emergent discourses, argue through any differences, and collectively name the discourses (i.e., investigator triangulation/peer debriefing). Both authors hit theoretical saturation at photolisting 18 (see Corbin & Strauss, 2008) and ultimately had very similar analyses.

Identifying interplay

Identification of discursive interplay is what distinguishes contrapuntal analysis from other types of critical discourse analysis (see Thomas & Scharp, 2017). Identifying interplay consists of determining how utterances vie for meaning-making power, reify or resist the dominant discourse, and/or align to create moments of new meaning. This interplay might happen over time (diachronic separation) or within a given utterance (synchronic interplay). Baxter contends that interplay can be identified in three ways: (1) the process of unfolding, (2) identification of discourse markers, and/or (3) member checking with participants. We engaged in the first two procedures because we did not have access to the photolistings’ authors.

Unfolding is an idiosyncratic (to the particular corpus) process whereby authors seek to understand the distal already-spoken and not-yet-spoken links of the utterance chain by asking, “How can these photolistings be a response to what the culture believes are adoptable children?” and “How do these photolistings anticipate the responses of the potential families who might read them?” Baxter (2011) argues that this process draws attention to hegemonic ideologies that serve to fortify some assumptions and marginalize other possibilities.

Identifying interplay through discourse markers requires researchers to attend to particular words that signal different ideologies. This can occur through negating, countering, and entertaining (see Martin & White, 2005). Baxter (2011) suggests that these words acknowledge the dominant discourse and then work to delegitimate it (e.g., countering and entertaining) or outright reject it (i.e., negating). Although the majority of interplay highlights the jockeying of power, discursive transformation occurs when two previously competing discourses are given voice in a way that simultaneously recognizes both as legitimate. When discourses combine like oil and vinegar, Baxter terms that a hybrid and when discourses are completely reconstructed like when hydrogen and oxygen become water, she calls that an aesthetic moment.

In the present study, the absence of both hybrid meanings and negating interplay attuned the authors to the need to further unfold the photolistings to uncover distal links of the utterance chain. After completing the analysis in which the two readily apparent discourses (i.e., discourse of child as typical [DCT] and discourse of child as special [DCS]) emerged, often by entertaining, the authors asked, “Given the playful nature of this struggle, with what cultural understanding might both of these discourses be struggling?” Thus, a third, unvoiced but culturally evidenced, discourse was revealed (see Findings and Discussion for elaboration).

Verification procedures

Five procedures were employed to verify the analytic findings (see Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Each author independently coded the photolistings before comparing findings, in a process called peer debriefing (see Discussion for more detailed explanation of this process). The authors also archived the second half of the data set to ensure referential adequacy; no new themes emerged in the second half of the data. To claim negative case analysis, we decided that any data that spoke to our research would be presented in the findings. In other words, we did not exclude any theme, discourse, or type of interplay. The authors kept an audit trail of decisions and detailed notes. Finally, exemplar identification ensured that readers could determine trustworthiness through rich and representative examples extracted from the data corpus.

Findings

In the present study, we asked, “How, if at all, do discourses interplay to construct the meaning of adoptable children in online photolistings that promote adoption through the foster care system?” Three primary discourses emerged as competing to make meaning of adoptable children. The DCS worked to construct children as individuals with unique characteristics that render them adoptable into a forever family. The DCT operated to position children as “just like any other” child. Both the DCS and DCT worked to decenter the pervasive discourse of child as unadoptable (DCU), which only emerged through the process of unfolding. Thus, we established the DCU by (a) arguing that photolistings emerged as a genre in response to cultural positionings of fostered youth as unadoptable and (b) providing evidence of the ways a child could be perceived as “imperfect.” However, we further argue that in the photolisting genre, this discourse is always in conversation with the DCS and DCT. We present and interpret the exemplars of each of these discourses and their interplay in the following section.

DCU

The process of unfolding required that the photolistings were not only read for emergent content but also were read as part of the utterance chain (Baxter, 2011). In the present study, the DCU is the extreme manifestation of pressure for family perfection, as evidenced by broader cultural practices and understandings. Foremost, photolistings emerge in stark contrast with similar texts related to private domestic adoption. Individuals seeking to adopt via private domestic adoption often create materials that advertise themselves as ideal (potential) parents in the hopes of being chosen to adopt (e.g., the genre of “Dear Birth Mother” letters; see Norwood & Baxter, 2011). Yet, the reverse manifests for fostered youth awaiting adoption: Instead of an abundance of potential parents vying for adoption, an abundance of children await forever families. The photolisting genre emerges in response to a cultural understanding that, whereas infants are highly adoptable and thus sought out, fostered youth are unadoptable or at least imperfect and thus less desirable. In this way, the DCU is couched in the culturally established expectation, or at least desire, for (the appearance of) family perfection.

Based on this distal already-spoken assumption that fostered youth are often viewed as unadoptable or less desirable/adoptable, photolistings addressed ways a particular child deviated—often in a culturally less desirable way—from socially constructed cultural expectations of what children are or should be. Discursively, this operated to acknowledge the DCU without directly referencing it, while still advocating for a child as adoptable in the same utterance. For example, in his photolisting, the author acknowledged VJ’s manifest difference, which was ultimately rendered sensical based on culturally privileged understandings of children:

He has beautiful brown eyes, long eye lashes, a wonderful smile that can light up a room and some huge medical challenges. His medical condition is stable but very complex. He requires constant care and always will. Nevertheless, he has made some tremendous gains recently.

After positioning VJ as (physically) attractive, he was marked as potentially unadoptable, perhaps except by someone who can provide “constant care,” due to “huge medical challenges” that are “very complex.” Although always requiring constant care is unexpected for most children, VJ had, nonetheless, “made…gains,” further marking him as different from other children who do not need to make any gains. Medical conditions were common but also not the only point of difference in the photolisting sample. For example, Elisse’s photolisting states:

Elisse is developing more appropriate ways of expressing her feelings and emotions. She can react physically and needs guidance to help her continue to improve her use of appropriate boundaries. Elisse is learning good social skills and how to respond more appropriately to redirection.

Although Elisse’s ways of expressing herself were at times deemed inappropriate (e.g., “[s]he can react physically”), thus marking her as different, she also had “many strengths” and was “developing more appropriate ways of expressing her feelings and emotions.” Yet, the word “more” (as in more appropriate) signaled that her past ability of expressing her feelings and emotions were “less.” Unfolding also was important when making meaning of the phrase “appropriate boundaries.” Put differently, not only did Elisse need to improve her use of boundaries, she also needed to do so appropriately. By providing the adjective appropriate, a reader might come to the conclusion that the boundaries she had set in the past were inappropriate. Thus, social workers never explicitly articulated that a child was unadoptable but used language to mark cultural expectation violations. Although talk about a child having culturally less desirable qualities holds potential to mark a child unadoptable, two additional discourses emerged to resist, decenter, and contextualize the DCU.

DCS

The DCS positioned children as adoptable due to individual characteristics that are positively valenced, thus decentering the DCU’s assumption that foster children are unadoptable. Indeed, even though the descriptions marked difference in a seemingly negative way in the DCU, sometimes differences also served to create positive expectations. Themes that constituted the DCS coalesce around a child’s individual attractiveness and a child’s desire for a forever family. These themes worked to emphasize that a child is a special individual who is worthy of, and willing to take part in, adoption.

Individual attractiveness

Children were presented as attractive candidates for adoption in a number of ways. For example, talk attuned the reader to a child’s physical, social, and/or task attraction (see McCroskey & McCain, 1974). A photolisting for Giles opened with, “I am sweet, handsome, playful, and, at times, even a silly boy, who enjoys playing video games and going to youth night at church”; thus, Giles and others were put forth as adoptable through descriptions of physical (i.e., “handsome”), social (e.g., “sweet”; “even a silly boy”), and task (e.g., “going to youth night at church”) attraction. Similarly, Esben’s photolisting stated outright that he was attractive:

Esben is an attractive young teen who is very engaged in school. At IEP meetings at his school, his social worker has always been very pleased to hear numerous compliments about Esben from his past teachers and educators.

Like Giles and many other children, Esben’s positive individual characteristics were put forth to mark him as an attractive individual who is special and thus adoptable, not unadoptable as the DCU might suggest.

Desire for family

The described desire for an adoptive forever family also marked children as special and especially adoptable. Many of the photolistings stated that a child would like to be adopted, and some emphasized this desire by putting forth preferences regarding family size, structure, values, approaches, and/or activities. For example, Gabri’s photolisting stated:

Gabri desires a one or two parent family. She would like an active family with whom she feels she could identify. Gabri has experienced loss and will need a family to be patient in building a relationship. Gabri does have extended family that is very important to her and would like to maintain sibling relationships.

Gabri not only desired a family, she was open in regard to its structure (e.g., “one- or two-parent family”), although she “would like to maintain sibling relationships” and she also had preferences regarding approaches (e.g., “patient in building a relationship”) and activity level. Similarly, an adoption professional describes Gavril:

Gavril truly wants to be adopted and has given thought to what he would like in a family. He wants an alcohol and smoke free home where sports activities are important. He also prefers a place where he can earn an allowance and he can have his own room.

Gavril, like Gabri and many other waiting children, desired a family (i.e., “truly wants to be adopted”) and had thought about it enough to have value, approach, and activity preferences. For Gavril, Gabri, and many others, unfolding revealed that the special, stated desire for a family worked to undermine the DCU’s assumption that children in foster care might not want to be adopted and are, as such, unadoptable.

DCT

The DCT positioned adoptable children as similar, or typical, to other children. Specifically, the DCT emerged through two themes of talk: positioning children as similar to like others and describing children as gender stereotypical. These two themes operated to construct children in photolistings as typical children who, as such, are adoptable. Thus, like the DCS, the DCT operated to undermine the assumptions of the DCU.

Representative of all children

A number of photolistings pointed to the ways in which children awaiting adoption are just like others who are like them. For example, one photolisting stated that Gareth, “loves pumpkin pie and chocolate and has many other favorites as most teen boys do.” Gareth’s similarity to other teens was marked through his having many favorites. Similarly, another teenager’s photolisting put forth that, “Aiden also enjoys playing Frisbee, building with Legos, riding his bike, and playing tether ball. Like any teenager Aiden enjoys playing video games and watching TV/movies.” Aiden’s typicality was marked by his affinity for activities, which Aiden enjoyed “[l]ike any [other] teenager.”

Other photolistings put forth that children were similar to (typical) children more generally. For example, Tilda’s photolisting stated, “Like all other children, she needs a family that will love, support, and encourage her into becoming the young women she has the potential to be.” Although Tilda awaited adoption, she, like any other child, “needs a family” to provide social capital and support her into adulthood, and in this way, Tilda and many others were positioned as similar to other children and thus, contrary to the assumptions of the DCU, were adoptable as a typical child.

Gender stereotypical

In particular, alongside more general similarities to other children, adoptable children were marked as typical through talk that described them as performing in ways that conformed to gendered expectations of (stereo)typical girls and boys. For example, Carson, a teenage girl, was described as follows in her photolisting:

I love to do typical girl things like paint my nails, put on make-up, and dress in nice clothes. I enjoy making friends with other children in the neighborhood. I love to go out and shop and do fun things.

Similarly, Iago, a teenage boy, was put forth in his photolisting as follows:

Iago is a typical boy who enjoys playing with Lego’s, toy cars and action figures. He also enjoys being outside playing. Iago likes to play basketball. He also enjoys participating in art projects and coloring.

This gender conformity, as part of the DCT, again undermined assumptions of the DCU. Both Carson and Iago were marked as gender-(stereo)typical, and thus adoptable, children because they enjoy activities and behaviors that are culturally positioned as representative expectations of those of the same gender.

Discursive interplay

Diachronic separation, as seen in the illustrative examples above, was prevalent in the photolistings; each photolisting worked to counter a cultural assumption that children awaiting adoption from foster care are damaged and unadoptable. In addition, diachronic separation of the DCS and DCT marked many of the photolistings, particularly in those that drew upon the DCS to construct a child as an attractive individual who desires a family. Synchronic interplay was also, however, found throughout utterances in the data corpus, when the DCS and DCT (but never the DCU) were both readily apparent. Entertaining was the most common form of synchronic interplay, and some photolistings displayed countering. No photolistings were marked by negating. Nonetheless, all three forms of discursive interplay are helpful to answering the research question, and thus, all are presented in the following subsections.

Entertaining

Discursive interplay most often took the form of entertaining. This competition occurred when both the DCS and the DCT were both manifest and equally privileged in a photolisting. For example, Roz is described as both special and typical:

Roz is a bright and witty youth. She enjoys spending time with others who share common interests such as writing, attending youth group activities, and dancing. For the most part, Roz is pleasant and kind to those around her. Like many youth her age, she has a challenging attitude on some days. Roz adores being treated like she is important and enjoys the attention. She cares deeply for her siblings and usually shows her emotional and vulnerable side when she is around them. Roz has a great sense of humor and likes sharing jokes, listening to witty sarcasm, and prefers to surround herself with fun-spirited people. She displays her emotions, but can be very goofy and joyful as she loves to make people laugh.

In this photolisting, the DCS framed Roz as a special individual with attractive traits (e.g., “bright,” “witty,” “pleasant”). Simultaneously, the DCT positioned Roz as a typical teenager (e.g., “Like many youth her age, she has a challenging attitude on some days”). Perhaps most interestingly, the DCS also pointed to the DCU in that what makes Roz similar to all children is that she sometimes has a challenging attitude, yet this potentially undesirable quality is ultimately framed as part of the DCT (i.e., a challenging attitude is typical of “youth her age”). All three discourses are present in this example of triadic interplay, with all three discourses helping to construct Roz as an adoptable child (i.e., the DCS and DCT carry equal weight and work together to quiet the DCU).

Countering

Occasionally, discursive interplay took the form of countering. Countering occurred through the DCT as adoption professionals repositioned the child as nonetheless similar to like others. For example, Wulfstan, an elementary school-aged child, is constructed as adoptable via the DCT countering the DCU:

Wulfstan is nonverbal, but sometimes imitates or echoes limited words and two-word sentences. He makes sounds to indicate his wants and needs. When his name is spoken, he responds and makes eye contact.

The DCU, marked by an older child being nonverbal, is countered (marked by the word “but”) through talk that, when unfolded, positioned Wulfstan as behaving in ways that might be expected of, or similarly to, children his age. In other words, when unfolded, the excerpt reads, “Wulfstan is nonverbal but sometimes imitates or echoes limited words [like others his age].” Similarly, Fryderyk’s photolisting states, “Although he is nonverbal, Fryderyk tries to speak, by imitating sounds and words.” Although Fryderyk, like Wulfstan, is older (teenaged) and nonverbal (the DCU), this is countered (“although”) by talk of his attempts to “speak, by imitating sounds and words” (the DCT), as might be expected of children his age.

Negating

None of the photolistings displayed negating, in which either the DCS or the DCT is called up only to be closed down, rendered illegitimate, by the other. Nonetheless, negating is worth mentioning in the context of understanding the discursive construction of adoptable children. Indeed, in photolistings with both the DCS and DCT present, each discourse is making the argument that a child is adoptable; thus, it makes sense that neither discourse would seek to directly silence the other. Instead, when unfolded as part of an examination of broader cultural understandings of foster care, both the DCS and the DCT operated to undermine a pervasive ideology that positions children in foster care as irreparably damaged and unadoptable. Furthermore and perhaps more surprising, the DCS or DCT also did not directly negate the DCU. For example, a photolisting could voice the DCU outright, stating that “some people might not see [Child] as potential family” or “[Child] has issues that hinder family permanence,” before drawing on the DCS and/or DCT to undermine assumptions of the DCU and supplanting it with special and/or typical characteristics that advocate for the child’s adoption. This negation does not occur, however, in the data set. One possibility for the lack of negation could be that adoption professionals might not want to or feel the need to suggest that a child is less adoptable or unadoptable. Another possibility is that these professionals are reluctant to say outright that some children are more or less adoptable and/or believe that all children are adoptable. Although we cannot say for certain, negating did not emerge in the corpus despite the identification of a third discourse. Implications of these findings are detailed in the following Discussion section.

Discussion

The present study provides empirical findings with regard to understanding “adoptable” children as constructed in online photolistings and joins the emerging critical family research by illuminating taken-for-granted assumptions that influence people’s lives. Specifically, three discourses emerged in a corpus of 104 online photolistings. Overall, the photolistings can be read in relationship to the cultural assumption that families should be perfect and children who deviate from expected norms are consequently unadoptable (i.e., the DCU). Two discourses emerged to resist the reading of a child as unadoptable. The DCS emphasized the unique and positive qualities about a child in particular. The DCT also worked to decenter the DCU by normalizing the child to fit in with typical expectations of children. Together, these discourses create a complicated picture of what it means to be an adoptable child. Understanding how social workers portray fostered youth is particularly important because of the related consequences (e.g., placement in a forever home).

Theoretical implications

In addition to illustrating the power inequities that emerge in discursive interplay when making sense of adoptable children (see Baxter, 2011, for argument that scholars inappropriately treat RDT as an interpretive theory), the present study provides a unique theoretical insight about the function of cultural discourses. Traditionally, existing RDT research elucidates the interplay between two discourses that are inherently at odds. For example, in a study by Scharp and Thomas (2016), a discourse that rendered families permanent based on shared history and biological connection emerged in contrast to a discourse that emphasized one that constructed families as temporary based on the need for relational maintenance, love/care, and personal safety. Indeed, based on these findings as well as the traditional dialectical tensions that often emerge as competing (e.g., expression/nonexpression, individualism/community, autonomy/connection; see Baxter, 2011), it might come as no surprise that Baxter contends that competing discourses are often contradictory. Yet, this study emerged as a unique opportunity to understand how similar content, when contextualized, can serve in drastically different ways to constitute meaning. Specifically, the DCU emphasizes the ways some children might violate expectations about what is perceived as normal (e.g., a disability). Through this lens, violated expectations are negatively valenced. Yet, the DCS also emphasizes difference, but in ways that make a child special (i.e., positively valenced). Finally, the DCT complicates this interplay by emphasizing the ways in which being indistinct from other children is valuable. Thus, we argue that one reason adoption professionals might have a difficult time not only writing photolistings but also generalizing to a wide audience and simultaneously trying to capture the attention of a particular family is that the issue of sameness/difference is working to promote foster children as simultaneously adoptable and unadoptable.

Another theoretical contribution of this study emerges in juxtaposition to existing research on adoption and foster care. Much family-focused RDT research to date is situated within a conversation about the (assumed) biogenetic ties that constitute a family (e.g., Baxter et al., 2014; Scharp & Thomas, 2016; Suter et al., 2014; Thomas & Scharp, 2017). In the present study, photolistings did not address this dominant discourse by attending to differences between adoptive families and those formed by blood ties. This is further reflected in the study conducted by Thomas and Scharp (2017) who found that in adoption photolistings, adoption professionals deeply relied on the idea of “family by choice” to negate ideas that families bound by blood were best. Rather, it seems social workers in this study anticipated that potential adoptive families would struggle with perceptions of family (non)perfectionism. This finding contributes by illustrating that biology might be only one issue that positions foster/adoptive families as “third best” (see Baxter et al., 2014; Garber & Grotevant, 2015; Suter et al., 2014). Perhaps more importantly, however, this finding might illustrate a missed opportunity for adoption professionals. A study by Baxter et al. (2015) found that one way parents who adopted through the foster care system constructed adoption was by emphasizing it as a way to help a child overcome adversity by the provision of care. Thus, social workers might be able to subtly shift their language to frame a child’s (special) needs as an opportunity for the parent to create a positive difference as opposed to a problem that the child is attempting to correct.

Practical applications

The findings illustrate that adoption professionals have opportunities to use language that could help reduce the complexity surrounding describing fostered youth and reduce some of the language that portrays children negatively without withholding important information about their care. Thus, findings from this study not only contribute theoretically (i.e., provide an example of how complementary discourses can compete) but also point to practical applications. Because of the complex discursive interaction, social workers might have an opportunity to engage the language of dialogic transformation in the form of discursive hybrids (i.e., adoption professionals might discuss fostered youth as special because they are different instead of separately special and different) or aesthetic moments (Baxter) as well as shift language to promote a child’s (special) needs as a positive parenting opportunity. For example, in the present data corpus, Costanzo’s photolisting ends with:

Parents for either of these twins (or both) will find them engaging and rewarding in many ways but will also need patience and structure to help them overcome trauma and begin to trust that families can be safe and secure places to belong.

In this exemplar, after describing parenting Costanzo and/or his brother as (positively valenced) special (i.e., they will be “engaging and rewarding in many ways), the “but” marks (negatively valenced) difference (i.e., the twins “will also need patience and structure”). Altering the language to embrace special because of difference and parental opportunity, the photolisting could be revised to read:

Parents who practice patience and provide structure will find either of these twins (or both) to be engaging and rewarding, as they help the boys to overcome trauma and begin to build trust in family as a safe and secure place to belong.

With small revisions, adoption professionals can discuss how each child is beyond compare in a way that is beautiful for the specific parent/family who becomes a part of the child’s life.

Methodological implications

The present study also contributes to the methodological advancement of contrapuntal analysis. Existing RDT researchers have consistently provided examples of all three sensitizing devices (i.e., entertaining, countering, negating) to illuminate the ways discourses interplay (e.g., Baxter et al., 2014, 2012; Scharp & Thomas, 2016). Indeed, researchers who attend to populations or genres that somehow deviate from a cultural norm might expect to see the use of entertaining, countering, and negating as the speakers attempt to resist an anticipation of a negative evaluation. When we first analyzed the corpus, the second author noticed the absence of countering, negating, and any discursive transformation in her analysis. In light of the population and the cultural belief that fostered youth are somehow less desirable than biological children, and through the process of peer debriefing, we compared our analyses and realized we had to return to the text. Put simply, the findings, or lack thereof, attuned us to the need to further unfold by examining the distal links of the utterance chain. When we engaged this process, a new discourse (the DCU) emerged. We then reexamined the DCS and DCT to determine whether they were the same discourse in competition with the DCU. We concluded that special-talk and typical-talk cannot be collapsed because each stems from a separate, culturally recognizable ideology about children. Because of this revelation, we examined how three discourses interplay together and found that interplay is nonetheless dialectical: the DCS undermines the DCU through diachronic separation and the DCS and DCT compete with the DCU via synchronic interplay (i.e., countering and entertaining). Even though negating never manifested, despite the articulation of a third discourse, triadic interplay emerged, rendering the findings more methodologically robust. Indeed, this is the first study, to our knowledge, to use contrapuntal analysis to elucidate triadic, rather than dyadic, interplay. Thus, we recommend that researchers be attuned to talk in which discourses neither fully negate, counter, nor suspend their competition. When this occurs, researchers should consider further unfolding, asking what larger cultural understanding discourses might respond to and exploring whether an additional discourse is playing a role in the meaning-making process. This methodological contribution also alludes to the theoretical importance of letting discourses emerge in the text as a dialogic process, as opposed to more traditionally modern critical approaches in which scholars levy their own a priori assumptions about what a text might be a response to and in anticipation of (i.e., the utterance chain). Consequently, RDT aligns most closely with Deetz’s (2001) dialogic discourse as opposed to the interpretive or critical discourse. Indeed, we suggest that this more fully aligns with Baxter’s (2011) rearticulation of RDT as it attends to the interpretive (discourses emerge) and critical (vie for dominance) components that are manifest in her theorizing. Scholars should consider discussing RDT with this nuance in mind.

Limitations, future research, and conclusion

As with any research, this study contains some limitations. One of the most obvious limitations pertains to not knowing the extent to which child welfare professionals consulted with the children before writing their photolistings. In this case, we cannot be sure whether the discursive interplay might take different forms depending on who created them. Thus, more research is needed to determine who does and should have the agency to contribute to photolistings. It is possible that including more voices in the process might mitigate perceptions that photolistings are a way to sell children online (see Milovidov & Treitler, 2014). Although the focus on discourse rendered specifics about the welfare professionals to be less relevant, future researchers might also attend to how the positionality and experiences of people writing the photolistings contribute the foster adoption process.

In conclusion, this study contributed in robust theoretical, practical, and methodological ways by illuminating what it means for foster children to be “adoptable.” Our findings suggest that although fostered youth are culturally positioned as unadoptable or less adoptable than other youth, in photolistings, foster children are constructed as special and/or typical in comparison with nonfostered peers. In practice, photolisting authors might strive for hybridity in describing fostered youth (i.e., positioning both typicality and uniqueness as positive attributes) and emphasize rewards for particular adoptive parents/families to promote adoption. The findings of the present study contribute to understandings of foster care and adoption and leave room for future research investigating how to best serve fostered youth and foster (adoptive) families.

Footnotes

Authors’ note

A previous version of this article was presented at the 2017 annual convention of the National Communication Association in Dallas, TX, USA.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Kristina M. Scharp

Lindsey J. Thomas

Open research statement

This research was not pre-registered. It is an interpretive study and consequently does not test any hypotheses. The data are not available on an online platform in their present form, although could possibly be sourced from the public domain. The authors would be willing to make the data available upon request and should be contacted at kristina.scharp@gmail.com. Materials are available from the author who can be contacted via email at kristina.scharp@gmail.com.

Note

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