Academics from the University of Huddersfield are investigating the long-term impacts of adoption amid record levels of children being found new families.
Adoptions have been running at record levels in the UK, with recent figures showing an annual rate of almost 4,000 – up by 15%.
Dr Jo Woodiwiss, a senior lecturer in sociology, is organising the adoption conference at the university to coincide with National Adoption Week in November.
Dr Woodiwiss’s research will focus on childhood experiences and – in particular – the effect of those experiences on adulthood.
She said: “I am looking at childhood retrospectively and from a sociological rather than psychological perspective.
“A lot of people examine adoption and childhood from the perspective of the actual time of childhood, but I tend to look back at experiences such as adoption, family breakdown or divorce to see the effect they have on adulthood and the kind of stories that we are able to tell about them.”
With her colleague Dr Kate Wood – a lecturer in social work – Dr Woodiwiss has been awarded funding to carry out research on stories of adoption and she is also examining the attitudes to be found in self-help literature to the subject.
“We tend to have a view of adoption that it is in some way lacking, or that it leads to inauthentic family life,” she added.
“Adopted children are often seen as having been traumatised by the experience or that something is missing in their lives.
“A lot of the self-help literature is very much focussed on that aspect.”
