ABSTRACT
Racially mixed unions and mixed parentage are at the intersection of a number of theoretical and social policy debates because they highlight a range of racialised social relations and divisions. ‘Mixed parentage’ challenges binary, black-white, thinking and demonstrates some of the contestations that are constantly being waged around the terminology of ‘race’. Since children of mixed parentage are more likely than white or black children to spend long periods in local authority care (Bebbington and Miles 1989), they illustrate most starkly the difficulties caused by the polarisation of debates on transracial adoption (Tizard and Phoenix 1993).
