Research Focus: Older Children and Sibling Groups Adopted from Russia and other Eastern European Countries.

Adopting internationally has become an increasingly popular phenomenon in western societies.  Nowhere is this statement truer than in the United States .

Publications:

I.  Book:

Eastern European Adoption: Policies, Practice, and Strategies for Change, Transaction, May, 2007.

For a detailed description of my book, please follow the hyperlink here.

Disseminating the Results of My Research

In connection with my current research, I have spoken at adoption conferences in Rhode Island and Massachusetts and at several conferences of sociologists and applied sociologists.

Thus far, I have also made presentations about this research to other sociologists at professional meetings in 1997, 2001, and 2003-2005.

Through information about my research, posted on various websites, I frequently get e-mail messages or telephone calls from people who share my interests in older-child and sibling-group adoption.  Sometimes, I hear from other professionals who are beginning to work in this field of research.  On occasion, I hear from people affiliated with an international adoption agency.  Lately, students working on advanced degrees (Ph.D., MSW) have contacted me.  They plan to do their dissertation or thesis on some aspect of adoption.  Most often, those who contact me are people in the pre-adoptive stage of the international adoption process.  They contact me because they are searching for information to help them make an informed decision.

II. Other Adoption-Related Publications:

A.  Article:

Implications of Recent Research on Eastern European Adoption for Social Work Practice.  The Child & Adolescent Social Work Journal.

(Forthcoming in 2007) (with Kathy Johnson).

B.  Chapter: 

Trends in International Adoption to the United States and Globally in J. Pati (Ed.) ADOPTION: GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE & ETHICAL ISSUES. Concept Publishers.  March, 2007.

C.  Book Reviews:

2005    The Birth of an Adoptive, Foster, or Stepmother: Beyond Biological  Mothering Attachments (Barbara Waterman) London and New York :  Jessica KingsleyPublishers, 2003. The Journal of Marriage and theFamily, May 2005, pp. 540-541.

2001   West Meets East:  Americans Adopt Chinese Children (Richard Tessler, Gail Gamache, and Leming Liu).  Westport , CT : Bergin and Garvey, 1999. Review solicited by the editors of Contemporary Sociology.

Other Professional Work

My other research, publications, presentations have focused on both teaching-related and substantive topics.

I have published more than two-dozen pieces, including articles, essays, a book chapter, a vignette that appeared in an Introductory Sociology text, and book reviews. Some of my early research was based on secondary analysis of existing survey data and statistics.  However, several of my previous publications were based on primary data that I collected through content analysis.  These articles focused on the ways in which women and issues important in women's lives – such as relationships, work, and health-- are presented in romance novels and women's magazines. 

I have also researched and written about the applications of sociology to disciplinary-related, academic, and social issues.  Most recently, I have published an article on using cases and case studies in teaching undergraduate students about the applications of sociology.  Examples of my other work involves, for example, examining the skills which employers are seeking from B.A.-level sociology graduates and other liberal arts majors, surveying sociological practitioners to ask what they think Introductory sociology students should know about the practice of sociology, using cases and case studies as tools for teaching students how to use sociological ideas and explanations to analyze social issues.

My book, THINKING SOCIOLOGICALLY: A Critical Thinking Activities Manual, first published in 1990, came out in a substantially revised second edition in 1999.  I recently heard from the publisher, Allyn and Bacon, that this book is still in demand.

I founded and coordinated the Annual New England Under-graduate Research Conference in Sociology as a forum for undergraduate sociology students from New England colleges and universities (and beyond) to present their original research. This conference was held continuously at Providence College for 20 years. Currently, it is “alive and well” and is being hosted on a rotating basis by colleges in Massachusetts .

I have presented my research at a variety of national, regional, and statewide professional meetings. These include the American Sociological Association, the Sociological Practice Association, the Society for Applied Sociology, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, the Society for Women Engineers, the Eastern Sociological Society, the Massachusetts Sociological Association [now the New England Sociological Association], and the Pennsylvania Sociological Society.