Internationally Adopted Siblings: Emergent Themes Related to Siblinghood

International adoption has been studied from numerous perspectives, however, one perspective noticeably lacking from the literature is the relationship between adoptive siblings, particularly internationally and transracially adopted siblings. There are many important issues regarding how these siblings relate to each other and how they experience and deal with adoption and ethnicity related themes. Because so many families who participate in international transracial adoption do choose to adopt more than once, it is important that the topic of siblinghood within these families be studied. The extant literature reveals few studies with findings indirectly relevant to internationally adopted siblings (e.g., Phillips, 1999; Samuel, 1999). The present study examined emergent themes related to siblings among families with adoptive siblings, at least one of whom was adopted from China. Method: This study is a subset of a larger project examining how families raising girls adopted from China navigate being a transracial adoptive family. The subsample included in this study (N=19) had adopted at least two children. None were biological siblings. Children’s ages ranged from five to eleven (M=7.5). Families included two-parent heterosexual and same-sex couples, as well as single parents. Almost all families lived in urban (50%) or suburban (45 %