Study of child placement in foster care : Analysis of sense of belonging and conflict of loyalties

The aim of this research was to question foster children and their family about their sense of belonging. Moreover, we questioned the children about their perception of the people constituting their family. Finally, conflict of loyalties was investigated in order to understand how children felt living in a foster family while keeping in touch with their biological family.

We used different tools including one we created, based on different indicators of sense of belonging and conflict of loyalties identified by previous research (ex. Buchanan, Maccoby & Dornbusch, 1991). The study was conducted with a population of 10 foster families.

Our results highlighted the presence of a double sense of belonging for all the foster children (belonging to the foster family and at the same time, to the biological family). Nevertheless, most of children felt a stronger sense of belonging towards their foster family than to their biological family. We also discovered that the concept of "family" could be difficult to understand for some children, and that for others, this notion spontaneously included only the members of their host family. Finally, we showed the conflict of loyalties was present in the majority of families but in different intensities.