Étude qualitative sur l'intégration en milieu de garde d'enfants adoptés de l'international : points de vue des parents et des éducatrices
Research on internationally adopted children is often directed toward catch-up after adoption, attachment security and over representation of adopted children in special needs education. These are quantitative studies which focus on school aged children. Few studies have considered preschoolers and to our knowledge no attention has been given to the daycare environment. Within an exploratory framework, the current thesis investigates the integration of adopted children in daycare through the subjective experience of parents and child care educators. Twelve adoptive families and their current child care educators were recruited through various adoptive parent associations, the Montréal pour enfants newspaper, daycare administrators and a blog on international adoption. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with each family and child care educator. Qualitative inductive analysis using grounded theory coding techniques was first used to uncover critical themes discussed by the parent-educator dyads and then through their respective groups. The following themes on integrating an adopted child in daycare emerged from the data: conditions prior to the arrival of the child in daycare, parent’s apprehensions, first contacts, special requests, daycare routine, adopted child development and particularities, child in crisis, new perspectives for the educator, elements of parent satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The analysis shows that most educators do not consider the adopted child to be different from the other children in the group; and thus the child’s integration does not necessitate special attention or consideration. Adoptive parents along with a small group of educators experienced with the realities of adoption do not share this view. By exploring the experiences of parents and educators of internationally adopted children in daycare, this thesis broadens our knowledge of better practices in daycare centers for integrating an internationally adopted child.
Parent Enfant International adoption Child Educator Daycare Childcare