Adoption, Identity, and Kinship: The Debate over Sealed Birth Records

By Katarina Wegar

Book Overview

Members of adoption triangles-adoptees, birthparents, and adopting parents-must struggle with difficult and sometimes heartrending issues. Should adopted children be enabled to trace their biological... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300067593
• ISBN13: 9780300067590
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 188 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Adoption, Identity, and Kinship

A good reference book with a dispassionate style. If you want to learn more about adoption, this book is concise, scholarly, and timely.

A rich sociological overview of sealed records and adoption

Professor Wegar uses a sharp analytical scalpel to dissect the "peculiar institution" of sealed records adoption in the United States, which is one of the last nation in the industrialized world that prohibits a group of its citizens from accessing their own documents of identity. Ms. Wegar also demonstrates how proponents and opponents of sealed records use the rhetoric of pathology and therapy to sway public opinion. A fresh perspective, and a recommended read for anyone sincerely interested in ending the failed social experiment of sealed records adoption.