Adoption of Children by Homosexual Couples: The Social Representations

This study aimed to identify the social representations of adoption by homosexual couples in the Brazilian reality. Participants where 589 adults of both genders, aged between 18 and 69 years (M=27.43, SD=9.0) from diverse backgrounds. Structured interviews and sociodemographic questionnaires were used and were analyzed using the IRaMuTeQ software, which organized the social representations into classes of lexical proximity. Results showed, a Descending Hierarchical Classifi cation, with two classes in the corpus of same-sex parent adoption and fi ve classes in the corpus about childhood development. These mainly highlighted positive social representations, always seeking the best for the adoptee as the justifi cation, however, unfavorable positions found refl ected the fear that the child would not be able to cope with the family model. In this sense, it is believed that the social representations about adoption by homosexual couples documented in this study indicate concepts that could support social interventions that increase the civil rights of homosexual parents.