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 racialized 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 polarization of debates on transracial adoption (Tizard and Phoenix, 1993). There is increasing recogniton that people with one black parent and one white parent do not necessarily suffer from identity confusion because they are neither black nor white. Instead, new, ‘mixed’ identities have emerged. Barbara Tizard’s recent research has played an important part in documenting and analysing the emergence of ‘mixed-race’ identities among young Londoners (Tizard and Phoenix, 1993).
