This interdisciplinary volume surveys the diverse experiences of biracial families, both across and outside the black/white binary. The book examines the deep-rooted social contexts that inform the lifespan of interracial families, from dating and marriage through the stages of parenthood, as well as families’ unique responses and realities. Through a variety of structures and settings including blended and adoptive families, contributors describe families’ strengths and resilience in meeting multiple personal and larger social challenges. The intricacies of parenting and family development are also revealed as an ongoing learning process as parents and children construct identity, culture, and meaning. Among the topics covered: Social constitutionality of race in America: some meanings for biracial/multiracial families. Interracial marriages: historical and contemporary trends. Racial socialization: a developmental perspective. Biracial families formed through adoption. Diverse family structures within biracial families. Racial identity: choices, context, and consequences. Addressing lingering gaps in the existing literature and highlighting areas for future study, Biracial Families gives readers a fuller understanding of a growing and diversifying population. Its depth and breadth of coverage makes the book an invaluable reference not only for practitioners and researchers, but also for educators and interracial families across the spectrum.

Are your undergraduate students interested in such topics as interracial dating, marriage, multiracial identity, transracial adoption, and related issues? If so, this is the perfect short text to assign in your course!

Multiracial families (families in which one member of the family has a different racial heritage than the other member(s) of the family) comprise a rapidly growing U.S. population. Counseling Multiracial Families addresses this population that has been neglected in the counseling literature. In the first chapter, readers are given a comprehensive history of racial mixing in the United States special needs and issues of multiracial families as well as special strengths of multiracial families are addressed. Challenges of interracially married couples are explored as are the social and cultural issues related to parenting and child rearing of multiracial children in today′s society. The results of biracial identity development research are translated into counseling practice with the children, adolescents, and adults in multiracial families.

Redefining Multicultural Families in South Korea provides an in-depth look at the lives of families in Korea that include immigrants. Ten original chapters in this volume, written by scholars in multiple social science disciplines and covering different methodological approaches, aim to reinvigorate contemporary discussions about these multicultural families. Specially, the volume expands the scope of “multicultural families” by examining the diverse configurations of families with immigrants who crossed the Korean border during and after the 1990s, such as the families of undocumented migrant workers, divorced marriage immigrants, and the families of Korean women with Muslim immigrant husbands. Second, instead of looking at immigrants as newcomers, the volume takes a discursive turn, viewing them as settlers or first-generation immigrants in Korea whose post-migration lives have evolved and whose membership in Korean society has matured, by examining immigrants’ identities, need for political representation, their fights through the court system, and the aspirations of second-generation immigrants.

Segregation is deepening in American schools as courts terminate desegregation plans, residential segregation spreads, the proportion of whites in the population falls, and successful efforts to use choice for desegregation, such as magnet schools, are replaced by choice plans with no civil rights requirements. Based on the fruits of a collaboration between the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University and the Southern Poverty Law Center, the essays presented in Lessons in Integration: Realizing the Promise of Racial Diversity in American Schools analyze five decades of experience with desegregation efforts in order to discover the factors accounting for successful educational experiences in an integrated setting. Starting where much political activity and litigation, as well as most previous scholarship, leaves off, this collection addresses the question of what to do--and to avoid doing--once classrooms are integrated, in order to maximize the educational benefits of diversity for students from a wide array of backgrounds. Rooted in substantive evidence that desegregation is a positive educational and social force, that there were many successes as well as some failures in the desegregation movement, and that students in segregated schools, whether overwhelmingly minority or almost completely white, are disadvantaged on some important educational and social dimensions when compared to their peers in well-designed racially diverse schools, this collection builds on but also goes beyond previous research in taking account of increasing racial and ethnic diversity that distinguishes present-day American society from the one addressed by the Brown decision a half-century ago. In a society with more than 40 percent nonwhite students and thousands of suburban communities facing racial change, it is critical to learn the lessons of experience and research regarding the effective operation of racially diverse and inclusive schools. Lessons in Integration will make a significant contribution to knowledge about how to make integration work, and as such, it will have a positive effect on educational practice while providing much-needed assistance to increasingly beleaguered proponents of integrated public education.

How multiracial people identify themselves can have a big impact on their positions in family, community & society. This volume examines the multiracial experience in the US.

Multiracial America addresses a growing interest in interracial people and relationships in America. Over the past decade, there have been numerous books and articles written on interracial issues. Despite the rampant growth in publishing, locating these often-scattered and inaccessible materials remains a challenge. This resource guide provides easy access to the available literature. Topical chapters on the most often researched themes are included, such as core historical literature, books for children and young adults, hot-button issues (passing, identification, appearance, fitting in, and blood quantification), interracial dating and marriage, families, adoption, and issues pertaining to race and queer sexuality. Each chapter includes a brief discussion of the literature on the topic, including historical context and comments on the breadth and depth of the available literature, and followed by annotations of books, popular and scholarly journals, magazines, and newspaper articles, videos/films, and websites. Other useful sections include a chapter on the depiction of interracial relationships in film, teaching an interracial issues course, and how to search for materials given changing terminology and classification issues. Indexes by race and non-print media are included.