There is a growing interest in adoptive families as one of the divergent family types in Korea. Studies on adoptive families have also increased, but there are limitations over the research subjects and methods, as most studies emphasize open adoptive families for the convenience of data collecting in a situation where secret adoption is the norm for domestic adoption. There is, therefore, a need to understand a more general picture of adoptive families from an earlier developmental stage. The subjects of the present study were sixty two prospective adoptive parents who were attending the compulsory parent education sessions, in accordance with the Adoption Act revised in August in 2012. They answered a questionnaire concerning their general background and their expectations of adoption practices and parenthood. Frequencies and chi square tests were used for the data analysis. The participants' principal motivation for adoption was infertility. They started considering adoption after seven to ten years of marriage had passed. More husbands than wives took the initiative in suggesting adoption. The majority was reluctant to make a decision on adoption. There were extreme preferences in terms of the adopted child's sex, age and health. Most subjects were anxious about adoption and fewer subjects were confident of their parental role. Levels of serf-confidence and parental distress were significantly different with respect to the parent's sex, marital duration, and the presence of another adoptive child in the family. Based on the research findings, implications for developing effective programs that help prospective adoptive parents' adaptation to parenthood and that lessen anxiety are proposed. Future tasks for further studies that support adoptive family development are also dealt with.
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