“Instead of Growing under Her Heart, I Grew in It”: The Relationship between Adoption Entrance Narratives and Adoptees’ Self-Concept

Authors

Haley Kranstruber, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Jody Koenig Kellas, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

4-2011

Citation

Communication Quarterly 59:2 (April–June 2011), pp. 179–199.

doi: 10.1080/01463373.2011.563440

Comments

Copyright © 2011 Eastern Communication Association; published by Routledge/Taylor and Francis. Used by permission.

Abstract

Adoptees are partially or entirely disconnected from those involved in their birth stories, so adoptive families create adoption entrance narratives to fill that void. Scholars assert that these narratives impact adopted child well-being later in life, but that assumption has yet to be empirically tested. The goal of this study was to examine themes emerging from adoption entrance narratives (n = 105), and to then determine the impact of story content on adoptees’ self-concept. Seven themes emerged: openness, deception, chosen child, fate, difference, rescue, and reconnection. Results indicate the salience of the chosen child, negative reconnection, and difference themes significantly predicted differences in adoptees’ self-concept.