Social Cultural Practices Research Articles

Barriers towards Sun Exposure and Strategies to Overcome These Barriers in Female Indoor Workers with Insufficient Vitamin D: A Qualitative Approach.

The prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency is significant even in tropical countries such as Malaysia. Sun exposure is the primary source of vitamin D for most people due to limited intakes of food containing vitamin D and supplements. This study explored the perception of barriers towards sun exposure and strategies to overcome these barriers among vitamin D insufficient women workers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Twenty-five female indoor workers with serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D < 50 nmol/L participated in seven focus group discussions (FGDs). Barriers towards sun exposure were lack of accurate knowledge of vitamin D, health concern towards sun exposure, time constraints, desire to have fair and beautiful skin, sedentary lifestyle, indoor workplace, weather, lack of social support, living arrangement, safety concerns, and religious or cultural practices. The improvement strategies were classified into lifestyle changes and workplace opportunity for sun exposure. Public education on safe sun exposure to produce an optimal level of vitamin D is necessary. Future studies should evaluate the effectiveness of sunlight exposure program at workplace for the high-risk vitamin D deficiency group.

Hidden among the hidden: Transracially adopted Korean American adults raising multiracial children.

The parenting practices of both transracially adopted Korean American adults and multiracial families are often overlooked in developmental science, yet are important to address, given that the majority of Korean adoptees are now adults with families of their own and given rapid increases in the multiracial population. This qualitative study examined the cultural socialization beliefs and practices among transracially adopted Korean Americans who are parents of multiracial Asian-White children. Drawing upon interviews with 31 Korean adoptee parents (29 female; Mage = 41.26), we identified four themes that capture parents' understanding of their children's multiracial identities, how that understanding subsequently shapes their cultural socialization practices, and how parents' socialization beliefs and practices vary by developmental stage. These themes described the ways that parents' cultural socialization practices were shaped by their children's phenotypes, parents' understanding of their children's multiracial identities, geographic location, and the multiracial family context. This study also demonstrated how multiracial couples in our sample engaged in cultural socialization together. Results suggest that Korean adoptee parents largely acknowledged their children's multiracial identities through labels, but primarily socialized children as monoracial minorities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Parental Cultural Socialization Practices among Underrepresented Ethnoracial Groups in a Predominantly White Rural College Community

Prior research indicates that parents adapt their cultural socialization approaches to their community contexts, however few studies have directly examined the influence of the community context in increasingly diverse rural communities in the United States. This study examined parental cultural socialization practices among individuals from underrepresented ethnoracial groups and the perceived influence of their predominantly White rural community. Parents employed at a university in the Northeast of the U.S. participated in this study which involved in-depth semi-structured interviews and used Grounded Theory as the analytic approach. Findings include three interrelated themes: (1) the community context increased ethnic and racial identity salience, (2) parents exerted deliberate efforts to culturally socialize their children and to teach their children to develop an appreciation for diversity, multiculturalism and inclusivity, and (3) parental cultural socialization behaviors were influenced by the 2016 presidential campaign and election. The findings show that the hegemonic, White-normative and exclusionary environment created in part by the demographics of this community influenced how they socialized their children about their cultural group memberships. The findings also suggest that community-university partnerships, support to families from underrepresented ethnoracial groups and community diversity education are promising strategies to strengthen community relations.

Review: How to Do Things with Affects: Affective Triggers in Aesthetic Forms and Cultural Practices, edited by Ernst van Alphen and Tomáš Jirsa

Book Review| June 01 2020 Review: How to Do Things with Affects: Affective Triggers in Aesthetic Forms and Cultural Practices, edited by Ernst van Alphen and Tomáš Jirsa How to Do Things with Affects: Affective Triggers in Aesthetic Forms and Cultural Practices, edited by Ernst van Alphen and Tomáš Jirsa. Brill Rodolphi, 2019. 279 pp./$96.00 (hb). Stephanie Amon Stephanie Amon Stephanie Amon is the associate editor of In the In-Between: Journal of New and New Media Photography. For more information visit www.stephanieamon.com. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Afterimage (2020) 47 (2): 93–96. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2020.472017 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Stephanie Amon; Review: How to Do Things with Affects: Affective Triggers in Aesthetic Forms and Cultural Practices, edited by Ernst van Alphen and Tomáš Jirsa. Afterimage 1 June 2020; 47 (2): 93–96. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2020.472017 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAfterimage Search In their introduction to this useful essay collection, Ernst van Alphen and Tomáš Jirsa schematize affect as “a stage in a process of triggering” (4). They understand affect as an ontologically unstable potentiality that can be formally provoked through artistic, literary, and social forms. Form sparks affect—this is the claim made in Eugenie Brinkema's influential formalist polemic, The Forms of the Affects (2014). When affect is activated by form, it unfolds and operates; it does things. Affect begets cognitive outcomes such as thoughts, emotions, ideology, and identity. It can therefore do ethically and politically consequential things. Thirteen scholarly contributions are organized into sections corresponding to these three stages: form, affect, effect. As contributor Jan Slaby points out, this basic yet sturdy framework accords with the view of affect in cultural theory as a “forceful processuality” that territorializes in social arrangements and cultural practices (61). Bernd Herzogenrath harkens back to... You do not currently have access to this content.

Развитие экологических практик, инноваций и инициатив в домохозяйствах и сообществах сельской России (Development of Environmental Practices, Innovations and Initiatives in Households and Communities in Rural Russia)

Russian Abstract: Проведенное научное исследование имеет преимущественно эмпирический характер, поэтому его объект включает в себя: на микро-уровне – сельские домохозяйства, их социально-экономические и социокультурные практики традиционного и инновационного характера; на макро-уровне – несколько регионов-кейсов, различающихся доминантными моделями сельской формальной и неформальной экономики, характерными для них производственно-экономическими практиками и хозяйственно-экологическими проблемами. Сочетались количественные (вторичный анализ социологических и статистических данных) и качественные методы социологического поиска (тактики кейс-стади и «история жизни», методы включенного наблюдения и полуформализованного экспертного интервью), что позволило подготовить аналитический обзор традиционных и инновационных социально-экономических и экологических практик сельских домохозяйств с учетом региональной специфики экологической ситуации и, тем самым, уточнить приоритеты региональной и государственной политики с тем, чтобы они поддерживали малые форматы самоорганизации сельскохозяйственного производства и сохранения сельских территорий. English Abstract: The conducted scientific research is mainly empirical, therefore it is focused on both micro-level – rural households, their traditional and innovative social-economic and social-cultural practices – and macro-level – several cases-regions that differ in the dominant models of rural formal and informal economies, their production-economic practices, and economic-environmental challenges. The study combined quantitative (secondary analysis of sociological and statistical data) and qualitative approaches (case study and “life story”, methods of observation and semi-formalized expert interviews), which allowed to provide an analytical review of traditional and innovative social-economic and environmental practices of rural households, taking into account the regional specifics of the environmental situation, and also to specify the priorities of regional and state policies so that they would support small forms of self-organization of agricultural production and development of rural territories.

Death and Ubuntu in Oliver Mtukudzi's Music

The musical lyrics of the late Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi (1952–2019), by focusing on social-cultural values and practices, are an unexplored but valuable resource for the purpose of thinking about ubuntu and death. In this article, the authors put forward a nuanced examination of the corpus of Tuku's music on death that reveals multiple, inconsistent, contradictory and interrelated insights into how ubuntu and death speak to each other. Getting to deep understandings of some of these consistencies and contradictions requires examination of the contexts, audiences, motives, and other factors that relate to particular songs. In part because of this the authors do not seek to suggest that any contradictions or inconsistencies they identify are evidence of failures or omissions in Tuku's thoughts on ubuntu and death. Rather, they seek to recognise Tuku's appreciation for how ubuntu and death bear many contingent, commensurable, incommensurable, fragile and even unspeakable meanings in the existential course of a life – in the fearsome face of death. From this vantage point, the authors recognise and value Tuku's practices of (indirect) communication. Specifically, they aver that Tuku's indirect communication exemplifies right ways of talking about concerns relating to how people should live and die. In doing this, they offer new insights into right ways of conducting indirect communication to respectfully communicate, to produce and to reproduce desired societies in which everyone can be the most that they can be.

Licensing of artisanal mining on private land in Uganda: social and economic implications for female spouses and women entrepreneurs

ABSTRACTBased on research conducted from October 2015 through June 2018, this paper highlights the social and economic implications of licensing artisanal mining on women’s land rights in Uganda. It also brings to the fore how artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) governance is affecting women’s participation in the sector. It examines how women as spouses and as entrepreneurs in the ASM sector are affected by the prevailing local governance structures and land tenure arrangements; the arrangements in place to ensure that female spouses get a share of compensation and other long-term benefits from ASM; and the ramifications of the lacuna between policy and enforcement on spouses and on women engaged in the ASM sector. The results show that the rights of women in the ASM sector are subjugated to social cultural practices, contradictory laws regarding women’s land rights, poor law enforcement, and weak structures for ASM governance.

Mathematical modeling of the dynamics of health risks associated with alcoholism in Tanzania: a literature review

In this paper, a number of alcohol related studies have been reviewed in light of the strength and challenges of the models developed for their applicability in Tanzanian drinking context. The aim of this paper is to provide a meaningful reference of the current state of the art regarding to modeling the health risks epidemics associated with alcoholic behavior in the community. It also discusses and identify current open problem reflecting on more realistic community and suggesting new research perspectives in the mathematical modeling of alcoholism and its related risks. The peer influence and social cultural practices appear to be two equally important influential aspects of model formulation with opposing effects on the spread of alcoholism. The study also reveals that, different levels of alcohol consumption has differing health effects. In this regard, the study proposes development of an advanced infection models to represent the influence of external motivations on the spreading of alcohol abuse by introducing different population segments with distinct exposition towards and resistance to the influence of drugs as an open relevant problem.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF BIOPOWER IN FRENCIS BACON’S PAINTINGS AND POSTSTRUCTURALIST THEORY

The art of Francis Bacon is positioned as a London school of figurative painiting of the second half of the twentieth century, and as such it is the most direct reflection of the post-war traumas of the Nazi regime that befall Europe and the world. It was exactly at the time, at the intersection of social, economic, scientific and technological and cultural practices, that a Western neoliberal order was formed. It is a sample or archeological/historical layer also studied by post-structuralists Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari. This text is an attempt of explication of certain links in the opinion that connect the painting of Francis Bacon and the theory of post-structuralism, which are focused on the issues of development of biopower within certain historical sites. Namely, post-structuralists realise that archeological layers are volatile historical categories, and each of them is an independent social and cultural creation. Bacon authentically connects these historical layers through his visual language, referring to older painters such as Velasquez, Rembrandt, Ingres or Van Gogh. Thus Bacon re-examines the status of the subject (conceptualises life by the powers of death using human body) and its liberties both in liberal and in neoliberal societies

The loudness of the “Unsaid”: Proverbs in selected African drama

The paper reflects on the use of proverbs as communicative constituents of African drama, how they are used by playwrights to establish themes, build context, enrich dialogue and develop characterisation. Many African paremiology scholars have studied proverbs as expressions of social realities and cultural practices as well as markers of identities (Amali, 2001; Akinyemi, 2007; Yankah, 2012; and Appiah-Adjei, 2014). The paper observes that in the bid to represent socio-cultural realities on stage, proverbs constitute a significant part of verbal resources in the dialogue of selected African plays. There is, therefore, the need to probe further the use of proverbs in African drama to reveal the “unsaid” elements of discourse and socio-cultural situations couched in proverbs with a view to enriching our understanding of the plays. To this end, textual illustrations are drawn from Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, Ola Rotimi’s Kurunmi, Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa and Mohammed ben-Abdallah’s The Trial of Mallam Ilya.

EARLY GIRL-CHILD MARRIAGE PRACTICES AMONG THE MOGHAMO RURAL COMMUNITIES OF CAMEROON

The practice of early girl-child marriage continues to be widely prevalent in many parts of the world. The prevalence of the practice in different parts of the world has been attributed to a number of underpinning drivers which could be categorized as cultural, social, economic and even political. As a cultural phenomenon, early girl-child marriage is often driven by cultural belief systems, cultural norms and values systems, culture-specific socio-cultural perceptions and cultural practices native to indigenous cultures in patriarchy. This study was carried out among the rural communities of the Moghamo tribe of North West Cameroon. The aim of the study was to investigate the psychosocial and educational consequences of the practice of early girl-child marriage among the rural communities of the Moghamo tribe. The study employed a qualitative design and Key Informant Interviews and Focused Group Discussions were adopted as methods of data collection. Findings showed that early girl-child marriage practices in rural Moghamo communities are deeply entrenched in cultural belief systems, norms and values, social perceptions and cultural practices of the Moghamo people. The study found that the practice results in negative consequences to the health of the girl-child such as difficult child birth, stress, depression, trauma, physical depreciation due to hard labour, and maternal and child mortality. The study also found that the practice resulted in high rates of school drop-out, inequalities in schooling and education between boys and girls, low rates of literacy among girls in early marriages and an obstruction in the educational aspirations of the girl-child. From a socio-economic perspective, findings showed that girls in early marriages in rural Moghamo villages were more likely to suffer from low self-esteem, low social status, wife battery, husband domination, complete financial and material dependence on husband, poverty and hardship, and lack of opportunities for personal development. The study recommends that the practice be conceptualized as a crisis and that programs designed to address the rate of prevalence and bring about full decline should be sensitive to cultural specificities in driving factors across practicing indigenous cultural communities and such programs should be able to engage the stakeholders in the prevalence of the practice with the hope of transforming them from agents of its prevalence to making them agents of change. Article visualizations:

Gender Roles and Changing Pattern on Baram Community: An Ethnography From Chandipurnima Festival

Second generation of women of Baram Community is highly constructive in social norms, values, customs, and tradition and very sensitive in gender equality than first generation. The major issue of this study is to find out the gender roles of Baram community from a major festival - Chandipurnima. The nature of gender roles and changing pattern on festival between two generations among Baram community, sharing behavior during the festival, power relation between male and female has been addressed. There are vast differences on two generations regarding the gender roles, first generation is still traditional and believe on radical cultural practices where as new generation has the impact of modernity and change due to the education and labor migration. However new generation is found high alert in social identity and cultural practices of the community. As it is an ethnography the study has been conducted based on participant observation and interview on the special occasion of celebration of Chandipurnima of Baram Community of Gorkha.

A Paler Shade of Green: Suburban Nature in Margaret Atwood’s Cat's Eye

Critics of Canadian literature such as Cheryl Cowdy, Frank Davey, and Franca Bellarsi construe suburbia as existing somewhere in between the concrete jungle and the verdant wilderness. The ecocritical implications of this geographic and critical positioning, however, have not yet been thoroughly examined. Common images of suburbanites portray people in the “enclosed private worlds of fences, parlours and automobiles,” cut off from their larger communities and environments in collective isolation. Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye (1988) depicts how this separate-from-nature culture is fostered. As Elaine Risley faces the repressed, traumatizing experiences of her childhood, she confronts her and her society’s various interrelationships with the natural world, showing how a suburban upbringing can produce unsatisfactory relationships with both human and non-human nature. In so doing, Cat’s Eye critiques common, urbane conceptions of nature from a point of view that is quintessentially ecocritical. Aside from the obvious environmental concerns vocalized by Elaine’s biologist father, ecological issues are relevant to three other aspects of the novel: Elaine’s early childhood in northern Ontario, her later summer vacations there, and the social pressures and cultural practices that Elaine experiences in suburbia. Through these elements of the narrative, Cat’s Eye articulates some of the fundamental relationships with nature experienced by those living in suburban Canada and seeks to move beyond conventional portrayals of this relationship.

Parental socialization profiles in Mexican-origin families: Considering cultural socialization and general parenting practices.

Recognizing that immigrant parents socialize their children in specific ways, the current study examines Mexican-origin families' parental socialization profiles using both parental cultural socialization and general parenting dimensions. We seek to understand how these dimensions interact to form culturally grounded parental socialization profiles in a sample of Mexican-origin parents and adolescents. There were 604 adolescents, 595 mothers, and 293 fathers within Mexican-origin families self-reporting on 2 cultural socialization dimensions (respeto, independence) and 4 general parenting dimensions (warmth, hostility, monitoring, reasoning). Adolescent outcomes were assessed 1 year later. Latent profile analysis revealed eight parental socialization profiles representing distinct combinations of cultural socialization and parenting dimensions. Relative to other profiles, the Integrative-Authoritative profile (high on socialization toward respeto and independence; high on warmth, monitoring, and reasoning; and relatively low on hostility) was the most common parenting pattern and was also associated with more optimal adolescent outcomes. Examining cultural socialization alongside general parenting dimensions can better capture parental socialization strategies among Mexican-origin parents. The various parental socialization profiles that characterize Mexican-origin parents have important implications for adolescent outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The Influence of Social Cultural Practices of Host Community on the Sustainable Conservation of Maasai Mau Forest in Kenya

The Influence of Social Cultural Practices of Host Community on the Sustainable Conservation of Maasai Mau Forest in Kenya

Meat Eating and the Transition from Plant-Based Diets among Urban Indians

Meat Eating and the Transition from Plant-Based Diets among Urban Indians

Responsible consolidation of customary lands: A framework for land reallocation

Land reallocation is an important step of land consolidation where farmland parcels are reorganised and redistributed. Most current land reallocation approaches focus on the technical aspects, at the expense of the social, cultural, economic, and political factors which are important on customary lands. This paper develops an approach for land reallocation to support responsible land consolidation on customary lands taking these factors into consideration. Using the process model approach, we identify the key characteristics of customary land tenure and the general requirements for land reallocation of these lands; from which a land re-allocation approach is developed. This is subsequently applied to a case study in Northern Ghana. The results show that even though the approach is successful to the extent that land fragmentation (physical and legal) is significantly reduced in the study area; social land mobility, land tenure and cultural practices hinder the application of the land reallocation as this would either increase legal or physical land fragmentation.

Survival analysis and prognostic factors of the timing of first antenatal care visit in Nigeria

ObjectivesThis study assessed the timing of the first ANC visit among pregnant women and identified its prognostic factors. DesignData obtained from 2013 Nigerian DHS, a cross-sectional and nationally representative survey, were used. MethodsWe included women who had had at least a childbirth or got a pregnancy terminated within the five years preceding the survey or currently pregnant as of the time of the survey. The outcome variable is the timing of the first ANC visit to skilled ANC service provider. Those who were either currently pregnant or lost pregnancy but have not accessed ANC were censored. Basic descriptive statistics and survival analysis techniques involving four models were used to analyze the data at p = 0.05. Data was weighted and adjustment made for survey design and sampling errors. ResultsAlmost half of the respondents were aged 25–34 years. Only 65.5% had at least one contact with skilled ANC providers and such visits were initiated mostly (58%) in the second trimester. The overall incidence rate of accessing ANC per month is 110 per 1000 women. Women with higher education had a higher adjusted hazard of accessing ANC than uneducated women (aHR = 2.89, 95% CI: 2.68–3.11). Older women from households in richer wealth quintile are more likely to initiate ANC. Women from households in richer wealth quintiles, those who had no problem in accessing ANC facilities, those with higher education, residing in urban areas and in the Southern region had a higher tendency of earlier ANC initiation. ConclusionANC utilization in Nigeria is low and the timings of first visits are delayed. For Nigeria to achieve timely and adequate use of ANC services, health facilities should be more accessible and women should be empowered in terms of education, autonomy, and earnings in addition to changes in social-cultural practices that prevent ANC uptakes.

Maternal nutritional supplement delivery in developing countries: a scoping review

BackgroundMaternal under-nutrition in low-income countries has been inextricably linked to negative child outcomes. Developing countries lack policies for monitoring and evaluating maternal nutritional programs, which has led to a gap in data collection regarding the effectiveness of prenatal supplement delivery methods. The objective of this scoping review is to examine and determine the delivery methods of maternal nutritional supplements in developing countries.MethodsScoping review of maternal supplement programs delivery methods in low-income countries including Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, and Nepal are examined. A systematic search was performed in six databases; CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health), MEDLINE, Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and FSTA (Food Science and Technology s).ResultsA systematic search performed in six databases yielded a total of 510 un-duplicated results; (CINAHL: 42, Medline: 112, Web of Science: 77, PubMed: 46, Scopus: 179, FSTA: 38, and additional records: 16). Results after duplicates were removed (n = 308), these results were screened, and relevant studies based on the research question identified and selected (n = 12). The 12 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility and 8 of these studies were excluded for not meeting the scoping review criteria. Data was extracted and charted from the four remaining studies. The findings were collated and summarized.Three modes of delivery were identified: 1. Volunteer maternal nutrition educator delivered supplements to the pregnant woman’s home; 2. The pregnant woman received a maternal supplements from school, health/local center, or village market; and 3. The pregnant woman received a ration card for subsidized food.ConclusionsBarriers in delivering maternal supplements included lack of trained professional volunteers, limited support and guidance provided to volunteers, and a high cost of equipment, supplies, and buildings. Pregnant women in developing countries faced many obstacles in accessing maternal supplement programs including poverty, rural isolation, limited transportation, low social status, traditional, cultural, and religious practices. Strategies required to improve program delivery involved an earlier invitation to prenatal supplements, increase in partnerships, a focus on adolescent girls’ health, paid maternal leave, increase in training and incentives for volunteers, and self-help groups focused on prenatal education and counseling services.

Conceptualizing an Adoption Pedagogy: Expanding Beyond “Teaching Adoption”

Adoption & Culture Vol. 7, Issue 1 (2019) Copyright © 2019 by The Ohio State University Conceptualizing an Adoption Pedagogy: Expanding Beyond “Teaching Adoption” JAERAN KIM, KIT MYERS, KIMBERLY MCKEE, AND ELIZABETH RALEIGH THIS SPECIAL issue on pedagogy and adoption began as a panel at the 2016 Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture Conference. In the session titled, “Adoption Pedagogy: An Interdisciplinary Discussion of Challenges, Implications, and Practices,” the presenters, representing faculty from various disciplines and at various stages in their careers, discussed what teaching adoption means for them and their students. The discussion centered on several topics that included challenging dominant narratives of adoption as rescue, best practices in teaching, integrating adoption content in courses not designed as adoption-specific, positionality and relationship to the adoption constellation, and student adoptees in the classroom. The essays included in this issue expand that conversation, addressing the epistemological possibilities and challenges when bringing together adoption and pedagogy across a broad range of academic disciplines, including American Studies , rhetoric, literature, counseling, and general undergraduate liberal arts, as well as considering adoption camps as a pedagogical space. In the past, when adoption was taught—if at all—most of the curriculum emphasized only the positive aspects, such as permanency for children, without contextualizing the loss that predates the new formation. Considering that nineteen out of twenty adults have a positive view of adoption, it is imagined as a 2 ADOPTION & CULTURE 7.1 win-win-win situation for birth parents, adoptees, and adoptive parents (“Adoption ”). However, as many who have lived and/or studied adoption know, adoption is much more complex and is, at its foundation, an extremely unequal industry . Race, class, gender, and disability status (among other factors) shape how children are transferred between first families and adoptive ones. Social institutions and cultural practices legitimize and commodify these practices. That four of the six authors in this issue are adoptees is not lost on us. Only within the past three decades has a slow shift occurred in how adoption is understood , as adoptees claim their expertise and the validity of their lived experiences. Yet, this evolution is slow to embrace the collective and individual experiences and knowledge of birth parents. As Chandra Mohanty reminds us, “who we are, how we act, what we think, and what stories we tell” are important; subjectivity and voice help us “understand our specific locations in the educational process and in the institutions through which we are constituted” (148). Included in the conversation is the recognition that positionality for adult adoptees—particularly transracial and transnational adoptees—may highlight particular tensions in the classroom related to adoption content as well as racial and ethnic identities. Transracial and transnational adoptee faculty may experience pushback simply because of their racial and ethnic status, as other faculty of color do. The pushback experienced by transracial/transnational adoptee faculty is particularly relevant given the special issue editors’ positionalities as internationally adopted persons from Asia who participate in critical adoption studies. Students who are adoptees may find their identities represented in the classroom for the first time, either as a result of the adoption course content or instructors ’ self-disclosure as adoptees. Alternatively, if part of pedagogy is to help students relate to the class material, how do we teach adoption to an audience whose members, for the most part, have at best tangential experience with adoption or whose knowledge comes only from media exposure? These essays help us consider the ways we might use pedagogy to counter the institutional (and human) tendencies that impair our ability to understand, re-imagine, and differently practice adoption. Michel Foucault reminds us that academia is a disciplinary (controlling) institution: “The disciplines characterize, classify , specialize; they distribute along a scale, around a norm, hierarchize individuals in relation to one another and, if necessary, disqualify and invalidate” (223). In “Teaching About Adoption as an Anti-Hegemonic and Anti-Racist Effort,” Patricia Sawin reflects on the task at hand, surmising “most of the students come to the course with a relatively positive opinion of adoption, seeing it as something honorable and ethical for an adult to undertake.” With these preconceptions, inviting students to question this logic can be challenging, and...