Ethical considerations

The main goals in ethical research are; voluntary participation (Silverman 2006; Rubin

& Rubin 2012), which was attained through informed consent in both means of data collection; confidentiality which was pursued throughout the research process from data processing to reporting; and protection from harm, which was accomplished by sensitive evaluation of the person’s situation, their capacities and needs during and after the interview (and also taken into account in the reporting). The FinAdo survey was further approved by the Ethics Review Committee of the Hospital District of South-West Finland as a medical study, and took all of these factors into account.

Taking part in the interviews was carried out on initiative of the participants

themselves. The participants were told that they could refuse to take part or to answer, as well as being able to stop the interview if they wished (Rubin & Rubin 2012).

The choice to conduct personal and narrative interviews was based on the sensitivity and complexity of the topic, since the adoption process can be perceived as a highly personal and sensitive issue, especially for those with a background of infertility or those who have been rejected in the adoption process. I believe I gained the trust of most participants since they talked openly about difficult and emotional things and referred to professionals by name, knowing that I probably recognized them due to adoption professionals being such a small group in Finland. Additionally, the community of adoptive families is also small, making adoptive families with children adopted from abroad a visible group, and which in-turn makes confidentiality important as the persons taking part in the study might know and have relations with each other (Holma 2005).

In social sciences, narrative research often focuses on persons belonging to minority or discriminated groups, whose stories and voices are not commonly heard in society (e.g. Larsson & Sjöblom 2010; Riessman 2002). One of the aims of narrative research is often to give “voice” to these disadvantaged groups (Creswell 2007). The group of prospective adoptive parents does not fit this description very well as they are capable of speaking for themselves and are often perceived as being powerful clients in social services. As a group they are also visible, for example in the media. However, in my professional experience their critical voices often seem to widen the gap between themselves and the professionals they interact with.

Another important ethical aspect is that research should always be useful and it should be plausible that the community being studied gains from the study that is conducted (Holma 2005). According to Holma (2005), usefulness can be seen as a contribution to self-understanding, or in offering tools which help to grasp and understand the phenomenon. In considering a ‘community’ (and especially such a selective community as featured in this research), it may be asked how ethically correct it is to portray a certain picture of a group of people. My aim in this research has not been to describe a group as such, but rather to scrutinize a phenomenon and the tensions that arise within it, through the accounts of personal experiences in that community, and in order to enhance the understanding about their situation and circumstances. Alvesson

& Sköldberg (1994, 206-208) further prompt us to ask: “Who gains and who loses through the research questions posed and what is taken for granted in the research question?” The question of what we are striving to achieve through the study is a question of power and values (Flyvbjerg 2001, 162), and the chosen perspective is important to reflect upon. As an adoption and social work professional myself, I have a different position from the user group studied, and one of my aims is to contribute to the wellbeing of adoptive family through an enhancement of the services which are provided to them. Although this aim has good intention, it could lead to the study becoming a research in favour of a particular stakeholder. I have tried to avoid this by adopting critical perspectives and reflection, and also examining the perspectives and interests of all parties involved. As a researcher my aim has also been to open up cultural, societal and political perspectives that perforate the whole setting of inter-country adoption, and in broadening the understanding of the paradoxes and tensions within the service delivery, and the prospective adoptive parents´ situation within the institutional context.

In my opinion, the only morally justified way to approach the topic of adoption is based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and accordingly stress the rights of the child above all others. But the moral and ethical values from social work also call for acknowledging the other parties who are involved in an adoption. The perspective of the clients, i.e. an adult perspective has consciously been chosen in this study, although this puts the more vulnerable parties of the child and biological parent(s) in shadow. It has to be accepted, though, that only certain aspects and perspectives of a phenomenon can be featured in an empirical study (Alvesson &

Sköldberg 1994, 209).

In a study such as this, one also needs to reflect on the formulations of the questions and the framework offered in the interviews (Mishler 1986, 97), as well as those which feature in the whole research process (Alvesson & Sköldberg 1994). By choosing the concept and viewpoint of clienthood as a categorization, the experiences studied were limited to the institutional setting and this enabled a comparison with other social work contexts. When posing the narrative interview question “Tell me about your adoption process”, the narrative was already directed and the perspective chosen.

Had I wanted to investigate the personal process of becoming an adoptive parent the question could have been posed as “Tell me about you process of becoming a (adoptive) parent” or had I had an interest in the motives for deciding to adopt I would have asked “Tell me about the process of deciding to adopt” etc. On a cultural level, the Western viewpoint is obvious in the overall research design. It is clear that this is a study on inter-country adoption as a white, middle-class phenomenon from the viewpoint of our culture. From a sending countries perspective, the question could instead have been directed at the biological parent(s), e.g.: “what made you give your child away” as addressed by Högbacka (2008).

In questioning the political aims of the research, we can also ask what the motives of the study participants were. Most participants in the interviews said they took part in the study as they wanted to contribute to research about the adoption process, A few had negative experiences with professionals that they wanted to share, while some seemed to participate because they had very positive experiences of the process that they wanted to share. Some of those with difficult experiences might have wanted to talk about them in order to make sense of them themselves (Chase 2005).

Every set of data has its´ audience, and this applies to both the participant´s stories told in the interviews as well as for the researcher´s story which is presented in the report (e.g. Holstein & Gubrium 2004; Riessman 2008). Additionally, the survey data can be considered to have its´ audience, even if survey research seldom reflects upon this. Since the survey was carried out in close co-operation with the adoption organizations, in addition to the research team, the audience can be seen to include the service providers, and thus the work forms a direct route of feeding back to them. The formulation of the open-answer question was further strengthened in this regard by the wording: ‘feedback on pre-adoption counselling’.