جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « adoption » در نشریات گروه « علوم اجتماعی »

Male infertility is one of the reasons for accepting adopted children in Iranian families. While the discourse on infertility and child adoption predominantly focuses on women, thereby characterizing the issues as 'feminized', this study employs a descriptive phenomenological approach to explore the lived experiences of 10 infertile men in Mashhad who have adopted children. Study participants were purposefully chosen from the 'Hammasirha' Telegram group. The data obtained from the in-depth semi-structured interview, conducted form February 2022 to May 2023, underwent analysis using the Colaizzi's method. The analysis reveals three distinct main themes: 1). "Burden of Childlessness" which encompsses the ‘suffering of infertility’, ‘suffering from facing significant others’, ‘empty nest’ and ‘unsuccessful treatment’; 2). "Difficult Transition" including ‘challenges directed at oneself’, ‘challenges directed at taking action’, ‘challenges directed at others’ and the ‘challenges related to the adopted child’; and 3). "Paternity Without a Body" highlighting ‘endless concerns’, ‘development of paternal identity’, ‘the desire to have children’ and ‘modern fatherhood’. The findings revealed that in response to societal pressures and the stigma attached to being childless, these men chose adoption as a pathway to establish their paternal identity and to respond to their wives' maternal instincts. Despite ongoing concerns, they expressed satisfaction with their decision and viewed it positively.

The phenomenon of infertility encompasses a range of subsequent challenges that extend beyond medical concerns, including the psychological and social strategies individuals adopt to cope with childlessness. These strategies, particularly adoption, are subject to varying interpretations and emotional responses by men and women alike. Gender is not merely a biological distinction but a category that is deeply rooted in the social context (Miller & Scholnick, 2000), which plays a pivotal role in shaping how individuals confront the complexities of infertility and the pursuit of parenthood through alternative means such as adoption. Male infertility, which refers to the inability of a man to impregnate a woman, accounts for between 40 and 50 percent (Fisher & Hammarberg, 2017) of all infertility cases (Agarwal et al., 2020). Recent researches show that infertility often leads to men's masculinity being questioned (Hanna & Gough, 2016) and that the stigma associated with male infertility is widespread (Gannon, Glover & Abel, 2004; Ozkan et al. 2015). This stigma indicates not only individual suffering but also societal pressure men face due to involuntary childlessness (Peronace, Boivin & Schmidt, 2007). Although infertility challenges affect both infertile women and men, research in the social sciences has disproportionately focused on women, with only a small fraction addressing the impact and the experiences of male infertility (Hanna & Gough, 2020). Moreover, due to the prevailing sexist norms, the realm of biological reproduction remains a “feminized space, requiring women's commitment and work” (Hanna & Gough, 2015). The subject of adoption, particularly within the infertility literature, has been received little systematic attention within the literature (Freeark, et al. 2005). To fully understand this domain, new studies is needed that provide appropriate indights into the adoption challenges in the existing socio-cultural context, especially concerning the gender of adoptive parents.
The current study aims to present a new perspective on the challenges these men have encountered transitioning from infertility to fatherhood, by exploring the lived experiences of infertile men who have adopted children. 

The present study, employing descriptive phenomenology methodology, aims to uncover the lived experiences of infertile men who have adopted a child. The focus is on infertile Iranian men who who have become fathers through adoption. The criteria for inclusion in the study were infertility due to male causes, adoption of a child, a minimum of five years in a childless marital unions, willingness and readiness for an interview, and residence in Mashhad. Data was gathered through in-depth, semi-structured interviews centered on infertility problems, the adoption process, and subsequent post-adoption experiences. The duration of the interviews is 90 minutes on average, stating with the main question, "Where did your adoption story begin?" Follow-up questions were tailored based on prior responses, becoming increasingly specific. Purposeful sampling was utilized to select participants who could provide rich insights into the adoption experience among infertile men, acknowledging that such individuals are key informants for this research topic (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2012). 

Analysis of data on the experiences of infertile men participating in the research were organized into three main themes: 1). the experience of infertility labeled as "Burden of Childlessness"; 2). the experiences of the adoption process termed "Difficult Transition"; and 3). the experiences of the rout to fatherhood described as "Paternity without a Body".
The "Burden of Childlessness" encompasses the ‘suffering from infertility’, ‘suffering from facing significant others’, ‘empty nest’ and ‘unsuccessful treatment’; the "Difficult Transition" covers the ‘challenges directed at oneself’, ‘challenges directed at taking action’, ‘challenges directed at others’ and the ‘challenges related to the adopted child’; and the "Paternity without a Body" involves ‘endless concerns’, ‘development of paternal identity’, ‘the desire to have children’ and ‘modern fatherhood’.

The theme of "The Burden of Infertility" reveals that men who are the source of infertility have experienced internal negative emotions and societal stigma stemming from their infertility, leading to feeling of inadequacy and deficiency in their sense of masculinity. In fact, these individuals often percieve themselves as not being "complete men", experiencing what is termed "silenced masculinity" (Abbaszadeh et al., 2023), as the prevailing societal image of masculinity is that of a man capable of procreation and fathering children. 
The analysis of participants' narratives indicates that, in accordance with Goffman (1963), both infertility and childlessness, as well as adoption of a child, lead to both personal and societal stigma for infertile men who become adoptive parents.
The findings suggest that infertile men who proceed with adopting a child confront numerous challenges, including including grappling with infertility both internally (with themselves) and externally (with their spouse and others), the dilemma of choosing between treatment or adoption, as well as the procedural complexities and the post-adoption consequences. Therefore, dealing with each of these problems necessitates specialized counseling and psychological intervention, which is especially crucial given the significance of the mental well-being of adoptive families and the enhancement of the adoption experience.

This article is based on the doctoral dissertation of the first author of the article in the field of Women's Studies, which was completed at the Faculty of Women and Family, Qom University of Religions & Denominations,. The authors of the article would like to thank all those who supported this research and the anonymous reviewers of the paper for their constructive feedbacks.

Adoption is one of the ways to experience parenting for infertile couples. Despite the demographic importance of adoption, the social research in Iran has paid little attention to its dimensions so far. The present study uses Grounded Theory methodology and in-depth interview with 15 adoptive mothers in the city of Yazd to explore the normative pressure perceived by adoptive parents in interaction with significant others. The data were analyzed using open, axial and selective coding and presented in the storyline (including 12 main categories and one core category) and paradigm model. According to the findings, the research phenomenon is the “anxiety and sympathy” which is made by causal conditions (Permanent infertility, judgement by significant others and significant value of child to give meaning to the life of adaptive parents). In response to this situation, the adoptive families choose one of following strategies: A) situational reaction strategy and B) standing up to all the problems by wearing iron shoes strategy. These strategies have been activated among adoptive families and consequently they may guide similar families for adoption based on their previous experiences. The findings also indicate that most adaptive parents perceive negative emotions resulting from anxieties that they received from significant others. Prejudices by these significant others, lack of social supports by relatives, concerns about the adopted child’s background are among the most important contexts that shape these concerns.

Motherhood, the beautiful sense of affection and having children is the symbol of this emotional necessity. The essential feeling of being a mother to a child in its natural and biological form is not possible in some cases, however, individuals could fulfill this issue to the fullest extent through adopting nonbiological children. Although with high statistics of infertility amongst Iranian households, the belief of being capable of becoming a mother without giving birth to a child and acceptance of a non-biological child is yet unfulfilled. The main issue of this research is examining the challenges of women in the process of adoption. Hence by adopting a qualitative approach and by interviewing 28 women thoroughly who had the experience of having a nonbiological child with analyzing the content of the interviews, challenges of adoption is extracted and underpinned. "Social, Cultural, and Religious Perspective", "Legal, Religious, and familial Structure", and "Selective, Responsible, and Conscious Function" are recognized and represented as the most important challenges in attempts of adopting a nonbiological child. The interior content extracted of these issues is entitled "Individual and Social Perspective arising from Institutionalized Traditional Values and Beliefs towards Stepchildren" which in fact this issue sets the scene for challenges that arise concerning adopting a nonbiological child.

Since the regulation of population policies and the enactment of laws and regulations related thereto are among the priorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran, these laws and regulations must be formulated and implemented with a long perspective in accordance with demographic conditions and characteristics; A desirable demographic system is necessary and necessary to identify appropriate indicators to legitimize demographic and child policies. T The need to address this is because population and child policies are of paramount importance in the realization of the government's development plan and are a component of authority, national power, and system stability. In addition, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has adopted inconsistencies in the adoption of population policies and laws, due to the lack of specific indicators in the definition of population policies and the lack of attention to the subject of population at times and places. The authors are therefore descriptive and analytically seeking to answer the question, "Given the pathology of the population-based regulatory system, which indicators can serve the purposes of population policy?" With the pathology of current population laws and policies, it will become clear that the country's population system has been damaged; regionalization, and attention to population quality, and a focus on the principle of proportionality.

The questions of the nature of the Western civilization and the way to confront it have been among important questions for Muslim politicians and thinkers, in the last two centu-ries. In this research, Ayatollah Motahari’s views on the West and the way to deal with it are studied. The main questions in this paper are: can Islamic and Western civilizations bor-row from each other intellectually and is there any limitation in such a borrowing, from Motahari’s view? While he argues that the West’s borrowings from the Islamic civilisation played an important role in the formation of the modern Western civilisation, he believes that the latter suffers from many weaknesses, which are related to its philosophical founda-tions and can also be seen in its political thought and practice. Motahari sees colonialism as the darkest point in the process of exchange between the West and Muslim societies. In principle, he is pessimist about the Western civilisation, though acknowledges its achieve-ments in some aspects such as science and technology and even in the promotion of justice. He does not refute Muslims’ adoption from the West, but renounces any attempt at dissolv-ing Islamic identity within the Western civilisation or following the latter’s deficiencies. He does not see the civilisation as a package that must be adopted or rejected as a whole, nor does he see it an integrated civilization with no differentiation between its constituent soci-eties.

The term ‘Legislative Politics’ determines a country prospective view, and provide its own expectation from ‘legal institutions’ before enacting relevant acts. But in the Iranian legal system, since legislator doubted between ‘adoption’ and ‘fostering’, the legislative politics about orphan children is dual and vague. That situation caused by two facts: on one hand, in Islamic context adoption has some limitations, and on the other hand sometimes best interests of the child requires an adoptive family and government inevitably is attracted to adoption. These dual politics caused some discordance, conflicts in the acts and also discouraged adoptive parents or attracted them to the alternative options (such as Embryo Donation for infertile couples). The legislator must determine its own politics definitely and pass from its doubt forever.

The term ‘Legislative Politics’ determines a country prospective view, and provide its own expectation from ‘legal institutions’ before enacting relevant acts. But in the Iranian legal system, since legislator doubted between ‘adoption’ and ‘fostering’, the legislative politics about orphan children is dual and vague. That situation caused by two facts: on one hand, in Islamic context adoption has some limitations, and on the other hand sometimes best interests of the child requires an adoptive family and government inevitably is attracted to adoption. These dual politics caused some discordance, conflicts in the acts and also discouraged adoptive parents or attracted them to the alternative options (such as Embryo Donation for infertile couples). The legislator must determine its own politics definitely and pass from its doubt forever.

Current study has done to investigate the effect of smartphone operation systems development on application usage rate as a new media and new marketing channel. For this purpose, the effect has been formulated by diffusion innovation theory of Rogers considering innovation and technology acceptance context. According to the model, features that cause an innovation and a technology adoption; are relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trial ability, and visibility of the discussed phenomena. For more acquaintance of different operation systems, the history of creation and development in this field has been explained. Base on data that covered 377 users of an interactive application, correlation has been found. By regression analysis, the effect and coefficient has been proved. Results show that smartphone operation systems development has a positive effect on application usage rate. As a result, acceptor increase and growth rate of actual application users by OS development are more likely predictable.

It is often assumed that after child placement in an adoptive family, the adoptive parents and the adoptees will take an easy and happy passage throughout their life. But in reality they experience several different stresses that can lead to the failure in the adoption process for adoptive parents. This is an unpleasant occurrence for both the adoptive parents and the adoptees, which occasionally instigates the disruption of this relationship and multiple separation experience for the child. With increasing the rate of adoption and adoptive families in Iran (1000 adoptive families per year and more than 30000 adoptive families); the interest in recognition of adoptive families, related challenges and required support and services has grown. Often, Iranian adoptive families consider adoption as a mystery and most of them try to hide the case of adoption.
In Iran the unknown factors about adoption are more than the countries that have done vast studies on this issue. The aim of this study was to investigate the challenges associated with the Iranian adoptive families and research needs in this area.
In this systematic review study, the English databases (google scholar, Elsevier, and PubMed) and Persian databases (SID, Magiran, and IranDoc) have been searched to find out relevant articles on adoption especially in Iran. Furthermore, State Welfare Organization of Iran publications added to this search. The most of searches were limited to ten years (2000-2010) nearly.
Findings: Although recent research indicates more stability and continuity in adoptions in Iran, we must acknowledge that adoptive families and adoptees are still facing huge challenges. Most of the articles published on adoption in Iran were related to legal studies and comparative studies of juridical and legal issues. There are few studies on social and psychological factors of selecting adoption process among infertile couples, the obstacles on adoption and also the educational needs of the applicants for adoption. Some studies showed the following themes as important characteristics of adoption in Iran: infertility of couples, gender of adoptee, Mahramiyat (confidentiality or familial privacy as a religious and cultural subject), understanding the child history, telling the fact to the adopted child and post-adoption challenges. The other important issue is factors result in failure to adoption which are classified in three categories: (1) Child characteristics, (2) Parents and adoptive family characteristics, and (3) Welfare characteristics. The follow-up studies on child adoption process were limited in Iranian families. In the absence of evidence based statistics and information, there are no study about adoptive families and adoptees after adoption finalization too.
Although a thematic classification on important issues of adoption has done in Iran, most of the studies are limited to legal issues and few researches have studied effective factors on adoption by infertile couples. The lack of post-adoption studies is another important issue that might be effective in planning and policy making in this area. There are some questions for researches that could answer the needs of adoptive families. The consequences that the adoptees endure because of adoption failure must direct the researchers, psychologists and politicians to work on various fronts and study more about it. They have to make more studies to prevent possible failure in adoption, decrease its consequences and negative impacts on families, and also provide positive intervention to promote adoption and improve the welfare of the adoptive families and adoptees. The adoptive families are growing each year in Iran, and its subsequent needs and demands are wide and diverse. Research findings support the claim that meeting the needs of families and children at different stages of decision-making for adoption and parenting requires scientific planning and professional support. The families also need to have access to pre and post adoption interventions during all stages of adoption and fostering. The main problem of these families and the effective factors on success, maintenance or failure of adoption should be examined systematically, otherwise the effect of these services could be faced with ambiguity. Overall, the well-being of these families requires further analytic research and systematic orientation by considering cultural factors.