Abstract

The assessment of prospective adoptive parents is a complex task for professional social workers. In this study, we examine the structure and function of professional social workers’ follow-up questions in assessment talk with adoption applicants. The analysis shows that adoption assessment through interviews involved a delicate and complex task that was accomplished by using a particular genre of institutional talk. This both invited the applicants’ extended and ‘open-ended’ responses and steered these responses and their development towards the institutionally relevant topics. Detailed interaction analysis demonstrates that social workers used a broad range of question types to steer and guide applicants’ responses, organising talk about specific assessment topics. On the basis of initial open-ended topic initiations and applicants’ responses, the social workers steered topic development by using follow-up moves such as polar questions and clarifying questions that asked for specification, challenged applicants’ ideas, confirmed their knowledge and encouraged self-reflection. These follow-up moves allowed social workers to achieve the progression of talk into relevant areas of investigation and constituted a central and characteristic feature of assessment interviews. We suggest that they allow social workers to accomplish two hybrid institutional goals: i) the assessment of applicants’ suitability and ii) applicants’ preparation for future parenthood.

Highlights

  • The assessment of prospective adoptive parents is a complex matter (Noordegraaf et al, 2008a)

  • We show how social workers steered the interviews towards specific areas of assessment and guided applicants to display their knowledge of institutionally appropriate aspects of adoptive parenthood, i.e. they supported applicants in articulating normatively acceptable ideas and views on adoption and parenthood

  • The analysis shows that the social workers introduced topics on adoption and that they used a broad range of question formats to develop the assessment interview

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Summary

Introduction

The assessment of prospective adoptive parents is a complex matter (Noordegraaf et al, 2008a). It involves both the assessment of whether applicants meet the practical criteria, and is heavily reliant upon the outcome of an interviewbased evaluation of parental potential, a process that is constrained by normative notions of good parenthood (Lind and Lindgren, 2017). In Sweden, intercountry adoption (i.e. the adoption of a child from another country than your own, referred to as international or transnational adoption) is preceded by meetings between professional social workers and prospective adoptive parents in interview-like conversations during which applicants’ suitability as adoptive parents is assessed. The interviews have to serve as an opportunity for the prospective adoptive parents to develop a certain awareness of parental skills and the specificities of adoption (National Board of Health and Welfare, hereafter NBHW, 2009)

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