Racial socialisation and negotiation of family mixedness among white parents of internationally adoptive children in France

Abstract

Focusing on the question of racial mixedness among international adoptive families in France, this chapter shows how white parents approach the racial socialisation of their non-white children in a colourblind context. While a minority of adoptive parents interviewed socialise their children through a learning of the racial minority status, the majority tend to apply an assimilationist approach, adopting a colourblind rationale to socialisation and keeping race at a distance. The different socialisation practices depend not only on the parents’ conception of racism, race relations and racial inequality in France—which is itself tied to their political inclinations—but also on the broader context in which children are raised (place of residence, parental sociability), as well as on the characteristics of adopted children, especially in terms of how they are racialised in French society.