Transracial Adoption and Fostering: Understanding Race & Racial Identity

Send us a topic idea or question for Weekend Wisdom.

Are you a transracial adoptive or foster parent? Have you wondered how you can help your child form a healthy racial identity. Does racial identity formation change depending on the race of the child? Today we talk about all this and more with Dr. Gina Miranda Samuels, a professor at the University of Chicago and Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture. She is a transracial adoptee and co-author of the book Multiracial Cultural Attunement.

In this episode, we cover:

How do children in the US come to understand race at different ages and developmental stages?How early do children develop a racial bias? How early do children associate certain characteristics to race and show a preference towards a person of a certain race? How does transracial adoption or fostering or kinship care impact a child’s understanding of race?How does transracial or transcultural adoption or fostering or kinship care impact children? Racial identity formation: How does being adopted transracially impact the adoptee’s racial identity formation?Coping with racismIn your research and in your experience, do you see a difference in the experience of race is perceived by both transracial adoptees or adoptive or foster parents depending on the race of the child? Asian, Latinx, Black, Bi-racial?Why is taking the colorblind approach to parenting not helpful? “It’s About More Than Hair”Transracial parenting requires the family to be fluent in “race talk” – socialization is not a conversation, it is a daily, incremental, and developmental family process.As our kids age, what is it like for our tweens, teens, and young adults to have parents of a different race?How does transracial adoption or fostering impact siblings in the family who are the same race as the parents?How does transracial adoption or fostering affect extended family members, such as grandparents and aunts and uncles?Practical tips for parents raising a child of a different race or ethnicity.

Additional Resources:

Diverse Book FinderThe Brown Bookshelf – highlights Black voices writing for young readers.The Conscious Kid Multiracial Cultural Attunement by Gina Miranda Samuels and Kelly Faye Jackson, 2019Tips for parenting your transracially adopted child by Dr. Gina Samuels EmbraceRace was founded to create the community and gather the resources they needed (need!) to meet the challenges faced by those raising children in a world where race matters.Dr. Erin Winkler,

Support the Show.

Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

Weekly podcasts Weekly articles/blog posts Resource pages on all aspects of family building