religious and cultural groups in a way that provides equal opportunity, civic status, individual freedom, and group recognition (Barn 2012). Thus notions of human rights, democracy, equality and social justice are the foundation stones of such a policy framework. Crucially, the notion of multiculturalism is open to competing interpretations with respect to the nature of the groupings involved and their interaction, with for instance different weighting attached to power dynamics (Modood, 2007; Parekh, 2008). Its relationship with adoption is similarly complex, requiring resolution of tensions between ‘personal’ and ‘social’ identity and forms of individual and collective belonging (Hearst, 2002). Particularly for its advocates, transracial adoption is often taken to be synonomous with the ‘multicultural’ (Quiroz, 2008). This may simply entail some notion of transcending ethnic barriers, but implicitly the ‘multicultural family’ recognises the minority ethnic child as the ‘bearer’ of a culture, with varying degrees of effort made by adopters to generate or maintain connections. Yet such efforts have often been fraught, whether due to diminishing enthusiasm on the part of adopters and/or children, tensions between ‘lived’ and ‘museum’ culture, or fears that differences may work against feelings of belonging within the family. There are also those who question the value and basis of any link with ‘culture’. This is sometimes articulated in a proposed restriction of such concerns only to those with ‘formed identities’ (Brooks et al, 1999; Narey, 2011). The difficulty with such arguments is their neglect of social identities and the challenges that arise for minority ethnic young people (and adults) as they interact in a multiethnic society. This key proposition is regularly overlooked, not least when it is assumed that the purpose of ethnic matching is to ‘replicate’ the birth family. Martin Narey writes:
such policies, to the exclusion of other efforts, can lead to the reduction of minority ethnic children in the care system in Britain. The misconception of social workers’ efforts to find racially and culturally similar families for minority ethnic children as segregationist and racist is also a worrying trend. Equally, it is imperative upon social workers to ensure that a balanced approach is taken in the adoption of minority ethnic children and that crude matching is avoided. It is also important that a range of supportive measures are adopted to firstly obviate the need for minority ethnic children to enter care, and secondly to seriously explore varied possibilities including kinship, guardianship, and long-term foster care as valid options to achieve permanency. Unless and until politicians and policy makers begin to understand the nuanced nature of permanence and stability for minority ethnic children in care, simplistic and popular notions of TRA as a strategy will prevail. Such a notion is not only misguided, it prevents the development of other possible solutions. References: Alexander C, ‘Cohesive identities: the distance between meaning and understanding’, in Wetherell M, Lafleche M and Berkeley R (eds) Identity, Ethnicity and community Cohesion, London: Sage, 2007 Bagley C and Young L, ‘The identity, adjustment and achievement of transracially adopted children: a review and empirical report, in Verma G and Bagley C (eds) Race, Education and Identity, London: Macmillan, 1979 Bagley C, International and Transracial Adoptions: A Mental Health Perspective, Aldershot: Avebury, 1993 Barn R, Black Children in the Public Care System, London: Batsford, 1993 Barn R, Sinclair R and Ferdinand D, Acting on Principle, An Examination of Race and Ethnicity in Social Services Provision to Children and Families, London: BAAF, 1997
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