This investigation was the prototype
and inspiration for adoption outcome
studies in later years. Conducted in the early 1920s by Sophie
van Senden Theis, it followed up 910 children placed in homes
by the New York State Charities Aid Association between 1898 and
1922. Up to that point, few inquiries had examined the results of
either professional or amateur child-placing, and these had been
small, scattered, and unsystematic. Homer Folks, the NYSCAA Secretary,
described this research project as “the first serious effort,
to collect, at first hand, on a considerable scale, the facts as
to the careers of an unselected group of foster children.”
How did these foster children turn out? Using the straightforward
standards of school success, self-support, and observance of law,
Theis concluded that foster children turned out quite well. Seventy-seven
percent were “capable,” 11 percent “harmless,”
and 12 percent “incapable,” according to statistical
data about the children’s family backgrounds, age at placement,
health, education, and work experiences presented in 67 tables and
six charts. In Theis’ view, and in the view of many later
outcome researchers, good outcomes were synonymous with “social
adjustment.” Children who turned out according to the prevailing
expectations of parents and agencies were children who turned out
well.
The study’s findings reinforced some existing views about
placing-out while challenging
others. A majority of the children (55.2%) had backgrounds that
were characterized as “predominantly bad,” while another
quarter (24.8%) were classified with histories that were “bad–unknown.”
Facts like these confirmed the eugenicist
position that available children were terrible risks. They were
likely to be defective or “feeble-minded”
children. Yet the study also indicated that bad backgrounds did
not predict bad outcomes. Since most children had bad backgrounds
and also became “capable” adults, heredity could not
be the determining factor.
The study undermined the view that older children were safer candidates
for family life since more was already known about their development
and character. Theis found that children placed after age five were
more likely to experience multiple placements, less likely to do
well or go far in school, and twice as likely to become “incapable”
people. In contrast, children placed early in life experienced more
security and belonging. They were also much more likely to be legally
adopted by their parents. Progressive-era child welfare professionals
were skeptical about severing ties between natal parents and children
and did not encourage adoption. So it surprised the researchers
to find that 30 percent of the study sample had been legally adopted.
They also discovered that adoption was strongly correlated with
measures of good outcome. This finding was all the more notable
because one-third of the adoptees had never been told about their
adoptions.
This study is a significant watershed in adoption history because
it painted an empirical portrait of placed-out children and their
families for the first time, while also establishing a statistical
baseline for the proportions who did and did not make good. That
statistical baseline indicated that placing-out had overwhelming
positive outcomes. “Our study leads us to believe that there
are tremendous latent powers within an individual awaiting development,
and that under favorable conditions these powers may be developed
and directed toward accomplishment.” Although outcome studies
in the decades after 1924 were methodologically more sophisticated
than How Foster Children Turn Out, they almost always reported
basically similar conclusions. Most children and placements turned
out well, while a small percentage did not.
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