Culture Kids Research Articles

A comparison of free time activity choices of third culture kids in Albania and children in the UK

ABSTRACTThis study aims to consider children’s perspectives about free time activity choices. Through the use of drawings, favourite free time activities of third culture kids in Albania are compared with those of children in the UK. The sample comprises four boys and three girls from four to eight years from each country. Further conversations reveal that children mainly initiated the activities themselves and yet often chose activities involving their parents. This study adds to the debate about hearing and responding to children’s voices to support them effectively through activity choices. Implications for parents and carers are highlighted.

‘Which country do you support?’: Third Culture Kids with Japanese connections and the role of sport in shaping national identities

AbstractIncreased globalization has given opportunities for families to relocate around the world often with ease. The product of such moves are Third Culture Kids (TCKs), whom Pollock and Van Reken (1999. The third culture kid experience: Growing up among worlds. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press) describe as individuals who have spent their developmental years in a culture outside their own. Literature suggests that these individuals are often faced with an identity crisis from not being able to fully integrate in both their ‘home’ and their adopted countries. This article explores the extent to which sport influences TCKs in forming a national identity. The researcher interviewed TCKs who have spent a period of their lives in Japan and investigated their views on national identity, with specific reference to sport. The interviews revealed that, in order to create a sense of belonging to a specific country, TCKs use cultural identifiers such as participation in sport and spectatorship of national sport ...

Identity, Family, and Faith: U.S. Third Culture Kids Transition to College

Recent trends in globalization have increased the number of U.S. children and adolescents being raised outside the United States. Using the framework of adults in transition, the authors sought to understand the structure of Third Culture Kids’ (TCKs), specifically Missionary Kids’, transition to college. Findings indicate that participants must negotiate new social and academic cultures while managing a sense of loss of cultural identity. Family and faith assisted students in developing personal coping skills and social support.

An Examination of Mental Health Promotion within International Schools and Current Reform Practices that can Benefit Third Culture Kids

The rising prevalence of adolescent mental health problems has created a need for increased public health programming in schools. Globalization and the expansion of the International Baccalaureate programs have led to higher numbers of Third Culture Kids (TCKs) attending international schools worldwide. Our review highlights unique characteristics of TCKs and presents a tactical blueprint to meet mental health needs. The first step was to develop an overview of existing mental health promotion practices implemented in national schools across the globe and the research that influenced their development. A second step was to provide suggestions for the application of these blueprints and resultant programs within international schools.

Analytical and Methodological Considerations for the Use of Social Categories in Identity Research

This paper examines the limitations of measuring identities as based on pre-selected categories, such as ‘immigrant' or ‘Third Culture Kid', within which the individuals are placed according to particular criteria. Simplified, etic categories fail to mirror the complex identifications of the contemporary individual and strengthen essentialism related to ethnicities, cultures and religions. This paper discusses the problematic related to categorization at both analytical and methodological levels. The need for critical reflection on the use of social categories to portray identities is highlighted in general. The adequacy of surveys to measure and examine identities is questioned in particular. This paper illustrates the need to approach identities from emic-etic perspectives and multiple angles in order to grasp a more multilayered view into the complex nature of identity.

A Qualitative Exploration of the Repatriation Experiences of US Third Culture Kids in College

US third culture kids (TCKs), or those who spend a significant amount of their developmental years in other countries, often repatriate for college. However, the TCK population is typically invisible on US campuses, and understanding of their journeys is lacking. Using as lenses Erikson’s stages of development (1963, 1968, 1997) and the Kubler-Ross grief model (1969) in this qualitative study, we explored repatriation experiences of TCK college students. Findings show significant struggles with cultural differences, identity, and relationships; a tendency toward aligning with other TCKs; and a desire to be heard.

Online Facebook Focus Group Research of Hard-to-Reach Participants

Conducting discovery-oriented qualitative research about the life experiences of hard-to-reach individuals posed several challenges for recruiting participants and collecting rich textual data. In a study pertaining the experiences of Third Culture Kids (TCKs), we explored the benefits of the social media, such as Facebook as a platform to collect data. TCKs are individuals who define their sense of belonging to the third culture trailing their parents moving across borders during their developmental years. Adult TCKs live in many different countries, and accessing and interviewing respondents could be a difficult and costly endeavor. In this article, the authors share their experience conducting online, asynchronous focus groups using a Facebook platform. We reflect upon the process of setting up a secret Facebook focus group for research purposes, recruiting participants, rapport building between facilitator and participants, monitoring and keeping track of participants’ responses, and the dynamics emerging within an online focus group. We also discuss the novelty, limitations, and benefits of the Facebook focus group as an emerging mode for collecting qualitative data from hard-to-reach participants.

Elite bilingualism? Language use among multilingual teenagers of Swedish background in European Schools and international schools in Europe

This article explores the language use and language attitudes as reported by a number of multilingual teenagers with a Swedish background in European Schools and international schools in Europe. Special attention is given to the concepts of Third Culture Kids and elite bilingualism in relation to teenagers’ multilingualism. This study is based on a sociolinguistic survey comprising 72 participants. The results show a relationship between the language of instruction in two different international education programmes and participants’ reported language use and attitudes.

The effects of data-driven learning upon vocabulary acquisition for secondary international school students in Vietnam

AbstractWithin the field of computer assisted language learning (CALL), scant literature exists regarding the effectiveness and practicality for secondary students to utilize data-driven learning (DDL) for vocabulary acquisition. In this study, there were 100 participants, who had a mean age of thirteen years, and were attending an international school in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This particular milieu unsurprisingly comprised ‘third culture kids’ (TCKs) and ‘cross-cultural kids’ (CCKs). They were assigned to a control and experimental group; both had several intensive weeks of online-dictionary learning training, while the experimental group also experienced intensive DDL training. This was done prior to the start of the eight-week longitudinal study. Major findings included a significant longitudinal main effect for both groups, significantly overall higher results for the experimental group than the control, and a significant difference among subjects’ grade level was discovered. Furthermore, the experimental group exhibited a significantly marked increase in vocabulary results in the later weeks of the experiment. In general, these results show that DDL can be successful in the secondary school English as a foreign language (EFL) context and that it promotes significantly better vocabulary acquisition when used in conjunction with online-dictionary vocabulary learning methods, especially for a sustained longitudinal period of time.

Using Process‐Experiential/Emotion‐Focused Therapy Techniques for Identity Integration and Resolution of Grief Among Third Culture Kids

This article explores process‐experiential/emotion‐focused therapy (PE‐EFT) as a technique for counseling third culture kids (TCKs) who experience identity conflict and unresolved grief. The authors suggest the PE‐EFT tasks of empathic exploration, meaning protest, empty‐chair technique, and 2‐chair dialogue to facilitate TCKs' identity integration and resolution of grief.

International Christian Schoolteachers’ Traits, Characteristics, and Qualities Valued by Third Culture Kids

In this qualitative grounded theory study, 24 participants, referred to as third culture kids (or TCKs), ages 18–30 years, who had previously attended international Christian schools were interviewed to determine the dispositions they valued in their teachers. Incorporating principles of grounded theory, a series of rigorous steps were undertaken resulting in the construction of three primary findings TCKs valued in international Christian schoolteachers. These findings were then situated within an extensive literature review. The results provide insight into the “ideal” international Christian schoolteacher desired and valued by TCKs. These findings should be of great interest to anyone responsible for training, preparing or recruiting international Christian schoolteachers, and/or providing ongoing professional development to the teachers in such schools.

Examining Identity Formation of Third Culture Kids Through Transnationalism Experience

Globalization has resulted in the significant migration of workers and their families, either parents bringing along their children, or reuniting with them in their host countries, or workers settling down in their host countries and raising their families (Ittel, 2012). These children, called Third Culture Kids (TCK) or “Global Nomads” (Sheard, 2008) comprise a group of individuals who are considered culturally unique. One of their characteristics is travelling with their expatriate parents in several countries and growing up in cultures other than their so-called “passport culture.” Bonebright described them as combining “portions of both their home culture and the host culture, building a new cultural identity that reflects all their experiences without developing a sense of belonging to any single culture” (2010, 52).

Writing Out of Limbo: International Childhoods, Global Nomads and Third Culture Kids

Writing Out of Limbo: International Childhoods, Global Nomads and Third Culture Kids

Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds by David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken Raising Global Nomads by Robin Pascoe Barbara Schaetti and Lois J. Bushong The Global Nomad's Guide to University Transition by Tina L. Quick (review)

Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds by David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken Raising Global Nomads by Robin Pascoe Barbara Schaetti and Lois J. Bushong The Global Nomad's Guide to University Transition by Tina L. Quick (review)

Coming “Home”

Born in the United States, I grew up in Senegal, West Africa, where my parents worked as missionary linguists. “Coming ‘Home’” tells the story of my return to the United States after graduating from high school. I frame my personal memories, shared in the form of poems (following the methodology outlined by David Hanauer’s Poetry as Research), with reflexive analysis (using the theory of David Pollock and Ruth van Reken’s Third Culture Kids). I examine the difficulty of leaving particular places and people from the “host culture,” as well as the challenge of transition back into the “home” culture.

Book Review: Gene H Bell-Villada and Nina Sichel (eds), (with Faith Eidse and Elaine Neil Orr), Writing Out of Limbo: International Childhoods, Global Nomads and Third Culture Kids

Book Review: Gene H Bell-Villada and Nina Sichel (eds), (with Faith Eidse and Elaine Neil Orr), <i>Writing Out of Limbo: International Childhoods, Global Nomads and Third Culture Kids</i>

Factors Affecting Third Culture Kids (TCKs) Transition

(TCKs) transition becomes challenging for both the student and the school. The programs implemented, or lack thereof, are imperative to the successful transition of TCKs into their new, diverse, multicultural environment. Research has been written on the positive effects and challenges faced by TCKs transient lifestyle. Although international mobility can expose students to unique experiences, it can also prove to be stressful for children, especially during their formative years.This paper addresses two factors affecting TCKs transition - programs and counselor - and concludes with a model of a transition support program that may assist international schools in addressing the challenges accompanied by TCKs transition into international schools.

Which one is Ithaca? Multilingualism and sense of identity among Third Culture Kids

The linguistic transition that usually accompanies immigration is often related to a strong sense of split between two places, languages, identities and emotional settings. What happens, then, when people change countries and languages three, four or even five times during childhood and adolescence? In the present study, focusing on Third Culture Kids (TCKs), we collected background information and data on cultural affiliation, identity and emotional expressiveness as linked with language aspects from 54 participants aged 18–30 years. In-depth interviews with eight participants followed. Analyses revealed significant relationships between non-linguistic and language-related factors, and TCKs' sense of identity. Participants used languages to define themselves and others. For many, being multilingual was indeed their identity. Many perceived languages as their roots, without confinement to a geographical location, and the notion of language dominance emerged as very different from that of typical immigrants, including language choice for emotional expressiveness. Women were generally more responsive to differences in cultural interaction in terms of language use and emotional expressiveness. This study is a significant contribution to the evolving literature on this population, and results are discussed in light of psychological theories of language and emotions as well as models of transnationalism.

Narratives of Third Culture Kids: Commitment and Reticence in Social Relationships

The lives of Third Culture Kids (TCKs) are characterized by their experiences of living among different worlds that could isolate them from social interaction and establishing long-term friendships. Exploring the experiences of ten TCKs, this paper reports on primary data gathered through the Collage Life Story Elicitation Technique (CLET) in order to gain an understanding of the meaning making of TCKs and their commitment and reticence in establishing relationships during their developmental years. In-depth thematic analysis indicated a struggle building intimacy and companionships and deep friendships, as well as difficulties with maintaining relationships with others and a possible fear of commitment. Implications for counselling of TCKs and their families are discussed.

Situating Transnational Genre Knowledge

Scholars have recently begun to conceive of literacy practices as drawing from resources that are simultaneously situated and extracontextual. In particular, studies of transnational literacy affirm the importance of both locality and movement in literacy studies. Continuing this inquiry into the situated and dispersed nature of transnational literacy, the author investigates the distinct effects that shuttling between national contexts have on the accumulation and use of genre knowledge. Specifically, through a case study of one Third Culture Kid student writer, the author reports on how her genre knowledge develops in response to transnational relocations between Italy and the United States and the way this transnational genre knowledge informs her writing of a high-stakes in-school genre. This case illustrates the value of rhetorical genre studies for understanding the situated and dispersed nature of transnational literacy and begins to outline the distinctiveness of transnational boundary-crossing practices.