The role of cultural dissimilarity factors on child adjustment following foster placement

Understanding the cultural factors associated with children's experiences in foster care is important because they may contribute to child psychological adjustment to foster placement. Despite considerable public policy debate of the role of ethnicity on foster placement decisions, there are virtually no empirical studies about the contribution of cultural dissimilarity factors on child psychological adjustment such as internalizing and externalizing problems shortly after children enter non-kinship placement. Using a sample of N=106 ethnic minority children (clustered in 62 families), we hypothesized that the number (ranging from 0 to 5) and types (i.e., ethnic status, country of birth, and spoken language) of cultural dissimilarity factors between biological and foster families contribute to child internalizing symptoms (CDI depression and LSD loneliness) and externalizing problems (ECBI conduct) after considering family and agency clustering and adjusting for confound variables (child age, gender, and severity of child maltreatment). Results showed that a higher number of dissimilar types and certain types contributed to lower scores in child psychological adjustment. Dissimilar ethnic status between caregivers contributes to CDI depression and LSD loneliness symptoms while dissimilar spoken language between caregivers contributed to ECBI conduct problems in the foster home. These results inform the public policy debate of transethnic placements for children involved in the foster care system. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.