National Library of Australia

Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

The Australian Journal of Adoption is an online journal solely focused on the subject of adoption in Australia. The journal will provide a quality, independent and open access forum for people involved in the adoption quadrangle.

The journal’s editorial position is neither pro- nor anti-adoption. Its intention is to provide quality research findings and information about adoption as past and current adoption practices continue to have a profound affect on the people involved.

The Australian Journal of Adoption will facilitate understanding about adoption and its associated issues to improve policies to encourage better practices, foster healing and provide support for those working in the field or affected by adoption.

The journal welcomes multi- or interdisciplinary submissions on adoption, written in English, with a distinctive Australian flavour.

From 2009, papers, media reviews and announcements will appear in the journal as they are finalized and made ready for publication. In this way they will be made available for reading and comment as rapidly as possible.

The journal acknowledges that some terms, for example adoptee, birth or natural mother, birth or natural father may be offensive to some readers. These terms are not intentionally aimed at offending, alienating or polarizing our readers; there use in the journal is simply as descriptors to differentiate between the two sets of parents involved in the adoption triangle. The journal apologizes to anyone who may be offended by the use of these terms.

Please note the journal is not a search facility for finding birth records or information to trace individuals affected by adoption. These matters are dealt with by the relevant states and territories.


The Structure of the Journal

The Australian Journal of Adoption contains the following features:


  1. An editorial to introduce papers, or series of papers, including thematic discussions and where appropriate guest editors may be invited to provide comment.

  2. Original peer-reviewed articles up to 5,000 words in length, exclusive of references and graphics.

  3. Book, blog or website reviews, up to 2,000 words, with adoption or adoption related themes, from around the world with preference given to books, blogs and websites that have a particular Australian flavour.

  4. Shorter case studies of between 2,000 and 3,000 words in length, exclusive of references and graphics.

  5. A policy section to provide a mechanism for evaluating or summarizing current adoption policies or programs through peer reviewed papers of between 3,000 and 5,000 words, exclusive of references and graphics.

  6. Abstracts, up to 500 words, of recently completed university theses, or theses being researched with an Australian adoption or related theme.

  7. Papers from Australian adoption conference or workshops. The length of papers to be determined by conference/workshop organisers but not to exceed a maximum of 5,000 words, exclusive of references and graphics.

  8. Organisers of national, state or local adoption conferences, workshops or seminars are encouraged to notify the Journal Manager of their events in advance so that the title, dates, location, nature of event and contact details of the organisers can be listed on the journal. These notifications can be sent directly by email to the Journal Manager.

  9. Original artwork for the homepage, ideally created by people within the adoption triangle, to introduce papers or book reviews. Original artwork will be rotated on a monthly or quarterly basis.


Potential Journal Content May Include:


  • Ethical and moral issues about adoption and adoption practices

  • Inter-country adoption in Australia

  • Research related to sending countries to Australia e.g. China, Korea, India, South American and African countries

  • Adoption healing

  • Matters affecting the adoption triad or quadrangle

  • Legal issues about adoption

  • History of adoption in Australia

  • Indigenous people and adoption

  • Assisted reproductive technologies

  • Development of parent-child relationships

  • Child welfare & child protection

  • Mental health

  • Separation, reunion, reconciliation

  • Fostering & adoption

  • Therapeutic studies of adopted children

  • Identity construction in adoptees and adoptive parents

  • Sociological and anthropological analysis of adoption

  • Inter-cultural and inter-racial considerations in adoption

 

Section Policies

Editorial

Unchecked Open Submissions Unchecked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Upcoming Events/Conference/Seminar/ Workshop Announcements

Unchecked Open Submissions Unchecked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Exhibitions and Events

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Original Papers

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Reviews (Books, Blogs, Seminars & Websites)

Checked Open Submissions Unchecked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Case Studies

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Policy/Program Evaluation

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Theses (PhD's Completed)

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Theses (Current)

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Theses (Masters Completed)

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Theses (Honours Completed)

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Conference or Workshop Papers

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Image for Homepage

Checked Open Submissions Unchecked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

Papers submitted to the Australian Journal of Adoption in the following categories are peer reviewed:


  • Original papers

  • Case studies

  • Policy/Program evaluations


Editorials, book, blog and/or website reviews, thesis abstracts, conference announcements and images for the homepage are not subject to peer review.

Papers submitted to the Australian Journal of Adoption are examined by the Journal Manager and at least two referees drawn from the journal's review panel.

Reviewers are experienced adoption practitioners at Australian universities, government agencies, in private practice and/or relevant non-profit organisations.

A closed review process is normally followed, however, an open review process could be followed should an author(s) and reviewers agree to do so.

Reviews are generally completed within 6 weeks.

 

Publication Frequency

Generally, individual papers or reviews will be published as soon as the peer review and online administration processes are completed.

Completed papers, reviews or thesis abstract will then be added to the Journal's Table of Contents.

On occasions papers may be published collectively, as part of a special themed issue or as a group of conference or workshop papers, with their own Table of Contents.

The intention is to publish appropriate new material as frequently as it comes to light.

 

Open Access Policy

The Australian Journal of Adoption provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making information and research about adoption freely available supports greater knowledge and understanding. Open access is associated with increased readership and citation levels.

The Australian Journal of Adoption uses open source software, developed by the Public Knowledge Project to help make open access economically viable, and to improve the scholarly and public quality of the research.

Authors are not paid for their submissions.

 

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

 

Review Panel

The team of reviewers are experienced adoption practitioners at Australian universities, government agencies, in private practice and/or relevant non-profit organizations.

The panel is updated annually and currently includes:

Dr Tom Frame, Charles Sturt University

Tom Frame was born at Sydney in 1962. He joined the RAN College, HMAS Creswell, as a 16-year old cadet midshipman in January 1979. After serving as Research Officer to the Chief of Naval Staff and completing a PhD on the HMAS Voyager disaster, he resigned from the RAN in late 1992 to complete a Masters degree in theology and training for the Anglican priesthood.

Ordained in 1993, he held parish appointments in Australia and England. He has been Bishop to the Australian Defence Force (2001-07), a Visiting Fellow in the School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University (1999-2003), Patron of the Armed Forces Federation of Australia (2002-06), a member of the Council of the Australian War Memorial (2004-07), judged the inaugural Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History (2006-07) and was a member of the John James Memorial Hospital Ethics Committee (2000-2003). He has been Director of St Mark’s National Theological Centre and Professor of Theology at Charles Sturt University since November 2006. Professor Frame is married to Helen. He has two daughters, one grand-daughter and lives in Canberra.

Bishop Frame is the author or editor of 24 books including Binding Ties: An Experience of Adoption and Renion (1999) and Children on Demand: The Ethics of Defying Nature (2008). He was relinquished as a child for adoption and was reunited with his birth mother in 1995.

Dr Susan Gair, James Cook University

Dr Susan Gair is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Work and Community Welfare at James Cook University, Queensland. Her academic interests focus on postnatal conditions, motherhood and Indigenous issues and her research work on adoption, violence in the workplace, suicide and inclusive curriculum. Her PhD looked at a different road to mothering by exploring the experiences of adoptive mothers raising adopted children in Queensland.

In more recent, separate, retrospective studies she has looked at the care of birth mothers by social workers, and by midwives, during the decades 1960-1990; the decades spanning the high years and heralding the dramatic decrease in adoptions in Queensland. In her most recent research she has collected narratives from participants who believed there were links between adoption and suicidal thoughts and behaviours. All of her research findings have been published in Australian and international journals.


Dr Kim Gray, University of Newcastle

Dr Kim Gray has been conducting sociological research on intercountry adoption for over a decade. Her research interests include issues of race, culture, identity and community in relation to intercountry adoptees, adoptive families and other transnational groups in Australia. Her doctorate considered the life histories of a group of Australian intercountry adoptees, placing their experiences within broader socio-political, historical and cultural contexts. Dr Gray contributed a chapter on Vietnamese and Korean adoptee experiences to the multi-disciplinary United States book project ‘International Korean Adoption’ (2007). Her interest in intercountry adoption continues to be fueled by her role as adoptive parent to two Korean-Australian children.

Dr Trevor Jordan, Queensland University of Technololgy

Dr Trevor Jordan is Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics in the School of Humanities and Human Services at the Queensland University of Technology. His specialist teaching and research interests include ethics and adoptions and adoption reform issues. He is also President of Jigsaw Queensland a non-profit, member-based organisation whose trained volunteer helpers provide a range of services to all those affected by adoption.

Dr Cas O'Neill, Melbourne University

Dr Cas O'Neill is a research fellow at the faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. She has over three decades of social work experience with community service and government organisations in areas of child and family welfare, bereavement, disability and community development. Her work has included direct practice, supervision, policy and program development, evaluation and research. She has had research contact with a number of permanent care/adoptive/foster families for twelve years and has a keen interest in consumer-oriented research.

Dr Nola Passmore, University of Southern Queensland

Dr Nola Passmore is a Senior Lecturer of Psychology in the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Southern Queensland where she has taught for more than two decades. Her teaching interests are in social psychology, and the application of psychological theory to current issues. Her research interests cover adoption, family issues, social psychology and Christian values. She and her husband live in Toowoomba.

Dr Lyndall Steed, Curtin University of Technology

Dr Lyndall Steed is senior lecturer at the School of Psychology at Curtin University of Technology, Perth. Her teaching and research areas include adoption, grief and loss, health and positive psychology and spirituality.

 

Journal Manager

The Australian Journal of Adoption was conceived and designed by Thomas Graham, an adoptee from a closed adoption process, who over the years has embarked on his own journey of self discovery and reunions.

 

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