Transition to adulthood for adopted young people: Secondary analyses of data from the longitudinal study of young people in England (LSYPE)

The overall aim of this study is to examine some of the long-term correlates of experiencing adoptive care. The research aims to provide new knowledge on adopted young people’s transition to adulthood and to make comparisons with the transitions of other young people who have not experienced adoptive care. The data for this research will be derived from the data sets of an ongoing panel study - Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE; Department of Education and National Centre for Social Research). The main aim of the LSYPE has been to identify, and enable analysis and understanding of, the key factors affecting young people’s transition from the later years of compulsory education to subsequent education/training or entry into the labour market.

Data of adopted young people and three other groups of young people will be identified from the LSYPE database for secondary analyses. The four groups of young people will be:

a. Young people in adoptive placements at wave 1 of LSYPE- Adopted sample
b. Young people in foster care at wave 1 of LSYPE- Foster care sample
c. A group of young people matched with the adoptive young people on several salient background characteristics - Comparison sample
d. A random sample of young people who do not fall into any of the above three groups - General population sample

The specific aims of the study are:

• To understand more about the educational achievement and aspirations of adopted children
• To evaluate how adoptive parents support education
• To explore the relationship between adoptive parents’ educational level and young peoples’ educational attainment
• To compare the educational attainment, behavioural adjustment, levels of satisfaction and the well-being of adopted young people with the study comparison groups
• To understand more about the impact of a stable family placement and school on young peoples’ outcomes.