Bio for John Raible
(updated 2018):
Dr. John Raible is known as a multicultural educator, transracial adoptee, adoptive parent, and scholar-activist. He has been educating audiences about race and adoption for more than 40 years. He got his start in the 1970s, speaking at conferences for social workers and adoptive parents, as a teen adoptee panelist.
John is often recognized as one of the “angry adoptees” featured in the 1998 training film, Struggle for Identity: Issues in Transracial Adoption. In 2007, he returned for the follow-up movie, Struggle for Identity: A Conversation 10 Years Later. Now, 20 years after its initial release, the film continues to be used in parent education classes and other settings.
In 2017, the National Association for Multicultural Education awarded John its G. Pritchy Smith Award for Multicultural Educator of the Year.
As an outspoken transracial adoptee and nationally-known advocate for adoptee empowerment , John has appeared on television talk shows such as the Joan Rivers Show and Sally Jesse Raphael. He has been interviewed across the media, including by Essence Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and BBC Radio’s World Service.
In 2005, John received his doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Teacher Education & Curriculum Studies, concentrating in Language, Literacy, and Culture. His dissertation examined the experience of non-adopted white siblings who grew up with adopted African American or Korean brothers and sisters. Educating parents who adopt children of color is an aspect of multicultural education that is not typically understood as anti-bias work.
In the 1980s, John worked as a public school teacher in the Navajo Nation, and in Compton, California. In 1990, he was recruited to teach in Ithaca, New York. John adopted two boys (now adults) from foster care, and raised them as a single gay dad. After 15 years as a teacher-activist, John returned to Massachusetts to pursue graduate studies.
Dr. Raible currently teaches courses in Multicultural Education and at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he received tenure as Associate Professor of Diversity & Curriculum Studies. At UNL, he is affiliated with three departments: the Department of Teaching, Learning, & Teacher Education; Women’s & Gender Studies; and the Institute for Ethnic Studies.
Over the years, John has provided training workshops, lectures, keynotes, and other presentations to a variety of audiences. For several years, John was active with Pact Family Camp in California, working as a transracial adoption consultant with the staff, parents, and campers in the Teens and Tweens groups.
Dr. Raible has provided workshops and keynotes for Black Administrators in Child Welfare (BACW), the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC), National Court-Appointed Special Advocates for Children (National CASA), the Africana Studies & Research Center at Cornell University, the University of Washington School of Social Work, and the School of Social Work at Hunter College, and other organizations. John spent nearly a decade on the board of the Adoption Initiative, helping to plan their biennial adoption conferences held at St. John’s University in NYC.
Receiving the NACAC Friend of the Children Award from Dr. Ruth McRoy in 2010
Dr. Raible is available as a speaker, trainer, and consultant on a variety of topics, including transracial adoption and foster care, social justice and education, and other multicultural education issues.
John Raible Online 