Migration, Diversity, and Education

Beyond Third Culture Kids

Fred Dervin, Fred Dervin, Kenneth A. Loparo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137524669
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

The concept of Third Culture Kids is often used to describe people who have spent their childhood on the move, living in many different countries and languages. This book examines the hype, relevance and myths surrounding the concept while also redefining it within a broader study of transnationality to demonstrate the variety of stories involved.

Section I
Multi-Mobility: Mixing the Global and the Local

1

Toward an Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Diversity of “Third Culture Kids”

Danau Tanu

The term “Third Culture Kids” is currently used to describe children who experience a high level of international mobility while they are growing up. It is usually applied to those who are relatively economically privileged and move due to their parents’ career choices, typically in the corporate, diplomatic, military, religious (missionary), or NGO sectors. There is an emphasis on “those raised with an inner expectation of ‘going back’ or repatriating one day” (Van Reken, 2014). Over the last decade or so, the term has garnered attention among the expatriate population and educators in international schools that cater to these children. “Third Culture Kids” and its related term “global nomads” (McCaig, 2002) have been featured in various major international media outlets such as Al Jazeera and the International New York Times (formerly International Herald Tribune) (e.g. Bolon, 2002; Al Jazeera, 2013; Rodriguez, 2013). However, the concept is difficult to apply across disciplines for two reasons. First, it is premised on essentialist categories that reify the boundaries, which define “Third Culture Kids”. Second, the (Anglophone) literature has hitherto overlooked the significance of the specific socio-historical context within which the term “Third Culture Kids” was coined and subsequently popularized. The literature is broadly unreflexive of its own American-centric approach. Consequently, the concept has facilitated the production of a wealth of niche research that resonate with those who self-identify as “Third Culture Kids” or “TCKs” but are largely neglected in academia. The broader literature on migration and identity barely acknowledge the existence of the term “Third Culture Kids”; even when it does, it does so fleetingly and shy away from using it as an analytical concept (e.g. Ahmed, 1999; Sparrow, 2000; Peterson, 2011). This chapter proposes an interdisciplinary approach to explore the conceptual issues of “Third Culture Kids” and its implications on research with the purpose of moving the scholarly debate on international mobility among young people beyond the concept’s current methodological limitations.¹

The chapter begins with an anthropological critique of the conceptual origins of “Third Culture Kids” by considering the socio-historical context of the term. I argue that the American focus of the foundational literature lends itself to a close study of the socio-psychological impact of international mobility on the individual at the cost of essentializing the concept of “Third Culture Kids”. In contrast, this chapter reflects on the socio-historical context of the foundational literature in order to embed young people’s experiences of contemporary international mobility within a world characterized by “super-diversity”, whereby a complex array of social factors (including, but not only mobility) intersect to influence individual experiences (Vertovec, 2007, p. 1025). Subsequently, I analyze empirical data using a psychological approach to show that the concept “Third Culture Kids” is more useful for studying the impact of mobility on individual identity development than the diversity among those impacted by mobility in childhood. “Third Culture Kids” is better understood as an emotionally powerful insider (emic) construct that narrates identity and belonging for people with a transnational upbringing in the same way that “Italy” or “Indonesia” represent geographical and emotional homelands, but are insufficient as analytical concepts. The final section moves beyond the existing concept of “Third Culture Kids” toward a more nuanced analysis of the diversity among those whom I refer to as “transnational youth” and the socio-cultural inequalities within the “third culture”.

This chapter is based on a critical review of the existing literature as well as data that I collected as part of a yearlong ethnographic study of an international school in Indonesia, where many of the students had moved multiple times.² The data is drawn from participant observation and over 140 in-depth interviews with students, staff, parents and alumni.

The foundational literature: shifting definitions of “Third Culture Kids”

Ruth Hill Useem coined the term “Third Culture Kids” as a sociological concept for her study of white, American expatriate children growing up in the then recently decolonized India of the 1950s (see R. H. Useem, 1993). However, the conceptual development of “Third Culture Kids” has been problematic because the literature treats culture as bounded and static, and is unreflexive of the changing socio-historical context.

“Third Culture Kids” is derived from the notion of the “third culture” whose definition in the literature shifted over the years. Useem et al. (1963) originally conceived of the “third culture” through their study of mostly American expatriate workers and local workers in India to describe the way they interacted with each other within a shared social space (see also J. Useem & Useem, 1967). Useem et al. (1963, p. 169) define the “third culture” broadly as “the behavior patterns created, shared, and learned by men [sic] of different societies who are in the process of relating their societies or sections thereof, to each other”. Useem et al. refer to the culture practiced by locals in the host society as the “first culture” and the culture practiced by expatriate Americans as the “second culture”. The “third culture” is understood to be a set of practices that facilitate interaction within a social space shared by those who come from different cultural backgrounds. This initial study gives almost equal attention to the American expatriates and Indian host nationals who participated in the third culture. However, the research emphasis subsequently shifts toward the American expatriate community with conceptual implications.

Ruth H. Useem (1973) turned her attention to the children who were growing up within the so-called third culture. Useem’s study focuses on the children of the dominant group: white American children growing up as dependents of American expatriate workers stationed in India and elsewhere in the non-West. Useem emphasizes that the various subcultures formed by overseas Americans are similar despite the variations that exist between them depending on the sending organization (e.g. military, church, corporation) or host society. In this study, the meaning of “third culture” shifts from being “behavior patterns” shared by all who engage with each other in the interstices of societies to being a subculture shared by expatriate workers (and their children), namely American nationals, who experience a relatively privileged form of international mobility. It is telling that Useem’s work focuses on the viewpoint of the dominant group when she writes that “the broad outlines of all of these third cultures were more alike than the various ‘native’ cultures in which they were situated. The non-Western cultures gave local color, embellishments, artifacts, additional languages and uniqueness to those coming from the West—but altogether these various third cultures formed an ecumenical bridge between East and West” (R. H. Useem, 1973, p. 122). According to Calhoun (2008, p. 113), those who are in a position of privilege are able to engage with ease in cosmopolitan interactions in a manner that relegates the host society into mere “backdrop”. Useem’s description of the third culture appears to pay scant attention to the way relations of power mediate intercultural processes.

The singular focus on white American children in the foundational literature (mainly by American researchers whose research agendas are partly driven by the available funding) has influenced the development of the field. Useem’s (1973, pp. 132–133) original study acknowledges that those who attend American-sponsored overseas schools include “hyphenated-Americans”, “host nationals” (usually children of the local elite) and “third country nationals” (those who, like the Americans, were in India as foreigners). Later, Useem and Downie’s (1976) seminal article entitled simply, “Third Culture Kids”, brought much needed attention to the topic, especially among American expatriate communities. However, because it only discusses American children growing up overseas, subsequent research came to assume that the findings on American TCKs apply to all children who grow up under similar circumstances.³ Even research that include data on non-Americans overlook other factors that influence the third culture, such as nationality, “race”, ethnicity and class. It remains true, as Schaetti (2000, p. 74) notes, that “issues of power and cultural dominance in international microcultures” have not been adequately addressed in the literature. The novelty of discovering that the shared experience of international mobility in childhood leads to a sense of belonging that defies national boundaries appears to have overshadowed the need to research the diversity of the target population.

In its current form, “Third Culture Kids” contributes to an understanding of the way international mobility impacts upon the individual. Studies often use approaches akin to developmental psychology because they are driven by practitioners in the field who want to help those who are personally struggling with issues relating to their internationally mobile upbringing. The most influential work by practitioners is Pollock and Van Reken’s (2009[2001]) book, Third Culture Kids: Growing up among worlds. Their findings are based on surveys and interviews, as well as David Pollock’s extensive experience of working with internationally mobile children (Van Reken, 2014). It is important to note that because the findings resonate with people beyond those whose cross-cultural upbringing was a result of the “third culture”, Pollock and Van Reken (2009[2001], p. 13) altered the definition of “Third Culture Kids”. In order to be more inclusive, Pollock and Van Reken (2009[2001], p. 13) used the word “culture” instead of “country” as follows:

A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture (emphasis mine). The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.

The broad definition gives the impression that the study is representative of all cross-cultural experiences. Meanwhile, the “TCK profile” in the book specifically describes the commonalities found among those who have had an internationally mobile upbringing as a result of their parents’ career choice.

Consequently, the move to be more inclusive has had practical success, but the contradiction between the broadness of the definition and the specificity of the description is analytically problematic. Practically speaking, it proved successful in reaching out to a wide array of people articulating hybrid identifications, especially after Brice Royer founded an online community for Third Culture Kids called TCKid.com in 2007. Royer worked together with Van Reken and other practitioners and researchers in the field to reach out to those who are struggling with issues resulting from an internationally mobile lifestyle, thus popularizing the term “Third Culture Kids” and, to a lesser degree, “global nomads”. The use of the term has since proliferated on the internet. Analytically speaking, however, the study reinforces the conflation between the expatriate community with the broader third culture. Pollock and Van Reken (2009[2001], pp. 14, 49) identify “the shared lifestyle of the expatriate community” or the “expat subculture” as the third culture that represents “an interstitial or ‘culture between cultures’”. According to Ruth Van Reken (2014), the third culture is “a subculture where they share the experience of a cross-cultural lifestyle, high mobility (theirs or others’) and expected repatriation[,] which is what made this experience different from traditional [migrants] and began the need for international schools in the first place.” In an attempt to be even more specific about the shared lifestyle of the expatriate community, Norma McCaig (2002, p. 11) coined the term “global nomads”⁴ to emphasize the unique experiences of those “who are raised and educated internationally due to a parent’s career choice.” The specificity of these emphases essentializes the third culture and Third Culture Kids by further shifting the focus from the processes of negotiating boundaries, which involve all who participate in the third culture, toward a set of characteristics that specifically describe expatriate children.

Subsequent studies contribute empirical data toward the literature but tend to retrace the thematic findings of the few initial authors, such as that “Third Culture Kids” have a broader worldview and multicultural identity, without making sign...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• Section I Multi-Mobility: Mixing the Global and the Local
• Section II Migrant Children: Belonging or Longing to Belong?
• Section III Being and Becoming in Transition: Ruptures, Changes, Coping
• Section IV Mobility and Beyond
• Index