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Although it is widely acknowledged by social casework professionals that lesbian and gay individuals have been adopting children for some time, relatively little is known about adoption agency policies and practices in this area, or about the extent to which such placements are being made. The debate about adoption by lesbians, gays, and same-sex couples, as well as the development of best-practice standards in this area, requires sound empirical data and a thorough understanding of the parameters influencing such placements. In an attempt to address these issues and to promote a more informed dialogue on this controversial topic, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute conducted a systematic, nationwide analysis of how agencies handle interest by lesbians and gay men in adopting children, the extent to which agencies are making such placements, and agency staff attitudes regarding adoption by this group of individuals. This chapter provides an overview of the results of this research and the implications of these results for adoption practice.

This chapter addresses the adoption of gender quotas. It reviews four explanations for quota adoption: women's mobilization, elite strategies, normative consistency, and international norms and transnational sharing. It considers the evidence for and against each account and finds that no single account describes all cases. Rather than search for another universal explanation, the chapter draws on these patterns to make a case for treating quotas as a global phenomenon, and thus, for exploring the possibility of causal diversity among quota campaigns. It suggests that each argument may characterize only some cases, at the same time that some may tell only part of a larger story that engages several of these narratives. To manage this complexity, the chapter disaggregates these explanations into their component parts to identify three sets of actors and seven possible motivations for quota reform.

This chapter explores the transnational adoption industrial complex’s origins, paying careful attention to South Korea’s lack of support for unwed mothers and low-income families and the manufacturing of orphans by orphanages and adoption agencies. Korean families’ abilities to parent are curtailed by androcentric legislation concerning Korean citizenship, societal stigma against unwed motherhood, and limitations to women’s labor force participation. Orphanages and adoption agencies facilitate adoptees’ social death in the creation of new birthdates and names, among other natal details. Adoptees are also constructed as interchangeable with documented cases of adoptees being sent in place of another child. The chapter ends with a discussion of contemporary South Korean adoption policy and government overtures to adoptees as they return to the nation that previously cast them out.

Over the past 30 years, the 50 state governments have experimented with different programs that attempt to leverage academic science to create economic growth. Three broadly diffuse programs are: Eminent Scholars, which attracts scientific talent; Centers of Excellence, which builds research expertise that involves industry; and University Research Grants, which provides funding for research projects. This chapter traces their adoption and estimates the relationship with economic, political and R&D-related conditions for each program. The results indicate that states, in part, use these policy levers to enhance the performance of their R&D capacity workforce and to substitute declines in national trends of extramural funding of research and development. Viewing Eminent Scholars and the University Research Grants as more upstream programs, the authors find that state commitment relies on the strength of the state’s R&D capacity and demonstrated commitment to science. By contrast, state adoption of the Centers of Excellence program, which is more downstream, has broader appeal, which is likely due to its design of producing more immediate economic outcomes.

Reports on the proposals for adoption law reform contained in the Report of the Adoption Policy Review Group, chaired by Sheriff Principal Cox, and warns against the undue concentration on a single issue (allowing same-sex couples adoption rights) at the expense of the wealth of measures recommended which will have vastly more impact on the lives of children who might be adopted.