Lead
A child is born in one country and raised in another. The language differs. The face in the mirror reflects a heritage the neighborhood may not share. The food, the ancestral memory, the landscape of birth — all are separated from the landscape of daily life by thousands of miles.
How families bridge that distance is one of the oldest questions in international adoption, and one of the better-studied ones. The answer turns out to be neither "immerse the child in cultural education and the problem is solved" nor "the gap doesn't matter." The research occupies the more complicated ground in between.
This article surveys the developmental evidence on internationally adopted children and what the literature on cultural socialization — the practice of transmitting origin-culture knowledge, language, tradition, and pride — has to say about how families navigate that ground.