Date of Award

Spring 6-13-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D. in Quantitative Research Methods

Organizational Unit

Morgridge College of Education, Research Methods and Information Science, Research Methods and Statistics

First Advisor

Bruce Uhrmacher

Second Advisor

Christine McConnell

Third Advisor

Yixiao Dong

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Keywords

Adoption, Auto-criticism, Educational criticism and connoisseurship, Identity development, Journal, Transracial

Abstract

This qualitative dissertation explores the lived experience of international transracial adoption through the combined methodologies of auto-criticism and journaling. Using a first-person, insider-led approach, this study addresses four central research questions: (1) What experiences emerge when an adult adoptee reflects on their childhood as an international transracial adoptee? (2) How do identity development, cultural socialization, and experiences of racial and adoptive microaggressions intersect and influence an individual? (3) How does auto-criticism uniquely describe the international transracial adoptee experience? and (4) How might journaling serve as a research tool for data collection and analysis?

Daily journaling over a 30-day period functioned as both a data source and a reflexive analytic process. Through descriptive and pattern coding, six descriptive themes were developed: visibility and difference, belonging in educational spaces, familial love and advocacy, the paradox of birth parent absence, microaggressions, and coping through humor and selective belonging. A second cycle of interpretive analysis revealed how identity formation was not static or self-discovered but actively negotiated in response to external scrutiny, relational dynamics, and structural assumptions surrounding race, adoption, and belonging.

Methodologically, this study expands the use of auto-criticism within adoption research, framing it not only as a tool of self-inquiry but as a mode of structural critique. It also positions journaling as a rigorous and reflexive method capable of capturing evolving identity experiences. Finally, it applies intersectionality not as a fixed framework but as a dynamic, lived process that attends to overlapping systems of power.

This work challenges dominant narratives that frame adoptee identity development in terms of adjustment or resolution. Instead, it reframes coping as a form of preservation and centers adoptee agency in navigating identity. The findings offer a model for insider-led qualitative research that is emotionally engaged, methodologically rigorous, and theoretically grounded. It contributes to broader conversations in adoption studies, qualitative inquiry, and identity formation by demonstrating how lived experience can be a site of both knowledge and critique.

Copyright Date

6-2025

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Jessica M. Morganfield

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

387 pgs

File Size

1.3 MB

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