Life Story Interviews with Adopted Adults Who Are Now Parents and Adoptive Parents Who Are Now Grandparents, 2018-2020

These data were collected as part of an ESRC study exploring the experiences of adopted adults who were now parents, and adoptive parents who had become grandparents. The aim was to better understand the long term impact of adoption on adopted people and adoptive parents, including the arrival of the next generation (children of adopted people). Parents and grandparents were interviewed using a 'life story' interview method (adapted from the work of Dan McAdams) where participants gave an account of their whole life, including adoption and becoming a parent/grandparent. This method generated very rich data about how people viewed their whole life and the role of adoption in their life, with interviews lasting from 1-5 hours. The archive consists of the anonymised transcripts of in-depth interviews with the two groups of participants: (1) 38 people who were adopted as children and who have now become parents (20 mothers and 18 fathers, age range 21-54 years, mean = 33. Age at adoption varied from 0-12, with 60% being adopted over age 1 - median 1.5 years, mean 3.2 years). (2) 43 adoptive parents who are now grandparents through their adopted child/ren (23 grandmothers and 20 grandfathers, age range 47-75 years). This is almost the full dataset from the project - only 2 fathers withheld consent for their transcript to go in the archive. NB adopted adults are described as mothers or fathers; adoptive parents are described as grandmothers or grandfathers. Almost all participants were living in England and had adopted/been adopted in England. Small numbers were living in Scotland or Wales. Interviews took place in 2019-2020. Also archived is data about the demographics of the participants. About half the sample consisted of 'linked' cases - where more than one member of a family had taken part, and information is given about which interviews are linked to each other. Finally, study materials are archived (leaflets, information and debrief sheets, interview schedules, demographic data collection form, consent form).