Interracial Adoption in the United States

Interracial adoption is the phenomenon where children of one racial or ethnic group are adopted by parent(s) of another racial or ethnic group.  Racial disparities are apparent within the adoption system in the United States.  With the increasing acceptance of family structures outside the nuclear family, this work examines the continued reluctance to create interracial families through adoption.  Max Weber’s concepts of status, party, rationality and the construction of race are used to address white parents preferring to adopt non-black, minority children, the use of race as a factor in matching a child with a family, the reluctance to the idea of a biracial family, and the hesitancy of black families to interracial adoption more so than white families.