Third Culture Kids and Global Nomads

Topics

Definition of culture

Definition of third culture kid/global nomad

Properties of third culture kids

Identity for third culture kids

The links between language, culture and identity

The link between culture and psyche

Third culture kid identity development

Schaetti’s developmental model

Global Citizens

 

Definition of culture

Culture can be defined and thought of in many ways, and some maintain that the word ‘culture’ is used so widely for disparate things that the word itself is devoid of meaning. However, for practical reasons, the word is hard to avoid. Here, culture will be defined as “a framework for making sense of the world, a system of shared assumptions, beliefs, and values.” (Heibert, Paul G. (1983). Cultural Anthropology (2nd ed). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, p. 28-29; in Pollock & van Reken, 2001, p. 40) A useful model structure for thinking about the different ways in which culture manifests itself is the culture iceberg, attributed to L. Robert Kohls. (unpublished manuscript; in Pollock & van Reken, 2001, p. 41) He sees manifestations of culture in layers of visibility and subtlety.

The layers above the surface are readily visible and relatively easily penetrable. Differences in behavior are very striking, as are differences in words. Customs and traditions are not visible in every interaction, but are often also easy to pick out. Greeting customs, for example, will be exhibited every time people meet – on the street, at work, in meetings. This provides ample opportunity to observe the appropriate forms of greeting in various situations. In addition, there is a deep link between behavior and words and the layers that are under the surface. Behavior is shaped by beliefs, values, assumptions, and thought processes. Words reflect thought processes and assumptions. What they convey reflect beliefs and values. One cannot be said to understand behavior and words unless one also understands what lies beneath the surface. Therefore, what lies above the surface derives from what lies beneath. The process of observing a culture is really the process of trying to see what lies beneath the surface. From what can be observed above the surface, the layers beneath have to be deduced, and most importantly, felt.

Definition of third culture kid/global nomad

Children who grow up in the third culture also grow up with the third culture worldview. Useem & Useem studied children who grew up in the third culture (including their own children) and termed them simply ‘third culture kids.’ That was later abbreviated to TCKs. A synonym for third culture kid is global nomad. (McCaig, N. (1992, Spring). Birth of a Notion. The Global Nomad Quarterly, 1; in Schaetti, 2000) They define a third culture kid as “a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The third culture kid builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the third culture kid’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of the same background.” (Pollock & van Reken, 2001, p. 19) If the parents are not from the same culture, presumably “outside the parents’ culture” can be replaced by “outside the culture of one or both of the parents.”

Pollock and van Reken consider the lack of full ownership in any of the cultures to lead to a feeling of belonging everywhere and nowhere. Two circumstances are key to becoming a third culture kid: growing up in a truly cross-cultural world and high mobility. By living in a truly cross-cultural world, Pollock and van Reken mean that instead of observing cultures, third culture kids actually live in different cultural worlds. By mobility, mobility of both the third culture kid and others in their surrounding are included. The interplay between the two is what gives rise to common personal characteristics, benefits, and challenges. (Pollock & van Reken, 2001)

Time spent in the third culture alone is not enough to give someone the third culture perspective. Other key variables for children are age, personality, and participation in local culture. For adults, age is of lesser importance, since to become a TCK one must be expatriated during the developmental years when the primary sense of identity, relationships with others, and worldview is still being formed (0-18).

Third culture kids have incorporated different cultures on the deepest level, as to have several cultures incorporated into their thought processes. This means that third culture kids not only have deep cultural access to at least two cultures, this also means that thought processes are truly multicultural. That, in turn, influences how third culture kids relate to the world around them, and makes third culture kids’ thought processes different even from members of cultures they have deep-level access to.

Third culture kids often have more in common than having grown up in a genuinely cross-cultural world and high mobility. Pollock and van Reken list four main commonalities: Distinct differences, expected repatriation, privileged lifestyle, and system identity. Third culture kids are often raised where they look physically different from those in society at large. In addition, they frequently have a substantially different perspective on the world that their peers. Third culture kids’ families frequently expect to repatriate to the home country of the parents permanently. Depending on why they live abroad, they may also enjoy a lifestyle with many privileges from both the host culture and the sponsoring agency like systems of logistical support. Many third culture kids grow up in the shadow of the sponsoring organization and are aware of their informal but real association with the organization. In many people’s eyes, third culture kids represent the sponsoring organization just like the adults involved with it. Diplomat children become representatives of their country, missionary kids become representative of their religion, and business brats become representatives of their parents’ company.

Third culture kids can never go home in the definite sense a local can go home, because home is a combination of time and place. Although third culture kids can return to a place, they cannot go back in time. The memories they have of security and belonging are only memories. The irreversibility of leaving a combination of place and time gives rise to rootlessness in TCKs, and this rootlessness can result in a migratory instinct later in life.

Properties of third culture kids

Expanded worldview versus confused loyalties

Third culture kids grow up with an acute awareness that there is more than one way of looking at anything. They learn early how people view life from different perspectives, which can results in an expanded worldview. On the other hand, being aware of different perspectives can result in confusion about complex things like politics, values, and patriotism. Misunderstandings easily occur if others can view third culture kids as unpatriotic and arrogant toward their fellow citizens when third culture kids don’t see things the way they do. Genuine value dissonances can also arise, and the expanded worldview can become a problem instead of an asset if the third culture kid returns to a relatively homogenous culture. (Pollock & van Reken, 2001)

Three-dimensional view of the world versus painful view of reality

Because third culture kids experience different parts of the world in tangible, personal ways, they experience distant proximities from childhood. Having experienced distant proximities early helps third culture kids imagine themselves at the scene of a news report and understand what is happening elsewhere without having been there. That same ability can become painful, because third culture kids also experience tragic distant proximities acutely.

Cross-cultural enrichment versus ignorance of home culture

Due to their involvement with the deeper levels of the culture iceberg, they appreciate that there are reasons behind differences in behavior. That can serve them well in communicating with people not just cross-culturally, but also within a culture that they know well. Third culture kids also have a more visible heritage of customs picked up from surface layers of cultures. However, sometimes this heritage comes at the cost of the heritage from the passport country. Third culture kids can be very ignorant of the history and culture of their passport country.

Framework for common characteristics

TCKs also have certain personal characteristics in common. Growing up in the third culture rewards certain behaviors and personality traits in different ways than growing up in a single culture does, which results in common characteristics. Third culture kids are often tolerant cultural chameleons who can choose to what degree they wish to display their background. How this comes about can be understood by looking at studies of cross-cultural adjustment in adult expatriates.

Cross-cultural adjustment is the degree of psychological comfort with the host culture. The comfort with the new culture develops as uncertainty is reduced. (Harrison, Chadwick, and Scales, 1996) Therefore, one way of looking at cross-cultural adjustment is in light of previous life stress research. Stress is caused by inability to assign meaningful cause and effect relationship or see the cognitive order in their situation. (Adelman, 1998) Because third culture kids grow up with cross-cultural adjustment, they grow up with the stress of being unable to understand their surroundings. In order to decrease this stress, third culture kids develop strategies to minimize it during childhood, which means that upon encountering it later in life they already have routines in place since childhood that make it a familiar situation. In contrast, regular expatriates are subject to the stress of cross-cultural adjustment to a much larger degree later in life.

One common strategy for making sense of stressful situations is to seek feedback and help from others, in other words, to seek out social support. Social support decreases uncertainty and enhances perceived control over the environment. There are two main types of social support: close ties and weak ties. Close ties include family, friends, and comparable others, people who are in a similar situation. Weak ties are impersonal ties, like shop assistants, landlords, etc. Support from family and friends is very important, especially in the initial adjustment phase. Comparable others can provide support and act like self-help groups. However, social support during the initial phase can come from anyone, including total strangers. Weak ties are a unique source of information and are vital to cross-cultural adaption. Cathartic gripe sessions among comparable others can help vent frustration. However, some TCKs can be extremely intolerant as a result of negative values transferred from comparable others in the expatriate community. Gripe sessions can become dysfunctional through what is known as the contagion effect. Stressed individuals can ‘infect’ others with their stress, resulting in all-around commiseration and a “sinking-ship morale” in the whole distressed social unit. (Adelman, 1998)

Since social support is such a key factor in well-being, it is essential for expatriates of all sorts to build social support networks. Any factor that enhances social support networks will therefore be beneficial. It stands to reason that one of the skills that third culture kids are encouraged by their environment to develop is building social support networks. Therefore, any practice that furthers well-being for expatriates is a strong candidate for common characteristics in TCKs. Kealey and Ruben outline six predictors of success in building social networks: empathy, respect, interest in local culture, flexibility, tolerance, and technical skill. (Kealey, D. J. & Ruben, B. D. (1983). Cross-cultural personnel selection criteria, issues, and methods. In D. Landis, & R. W. Brislin (Eds.), Handbook of intercultural training: Vol. 1, (p. 155-175). New York: Pergamon Press; in Adelman, 1998) Other personality variables that have been found to help are broad- or openmindedness and cultural empathy (Abe, M., & Weiseman, R. (1983). A cross-cultural confirmation of the dimensions of intercultural effectiveness. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 7, 53-69; Hays, R. D. (1974). Expatriate selection: Insuring success and avoiding failure. Journal of International Business Studies, 5, 40-46.; Kobrin, S. J. (1984). International expertise in American business. New York, NY: Institute of International Education; Ratiu, I. (1983). Thinking internationally: A comparison of how international executives learn. International Studies of Management and Organization, 13, 139-150; in Harrison, Chadwick, and Scales, 1996), creativity and a sense of humor (Stoner, J. A. F., Aram, J. D., Rubin, I. M. (1972). Factors associated with effective performance in work assignments. Personnel Psychology, 25, 303-318; in Harrison, Chadwick, and Scales, 1996), integrity and sincerity (Habir, A. D., & Conway, B. (1986). The successful expatriate: How to cope in Indonesia. Euro-Asia Business Review, 5, 47-51; in Harrison, Chadwick, and Scales, 1996), stress tolerance (Mendenhall, M., & Oddou, G. (1985). The dimensions of expatriate acculturation: A review. Academy of Management Review, 10, 39-47.; Stening, B. W., & Hammer, M. R. (1992). Cultural baggage and the adaptation of American and Japanese managers. Management International Review, 32, 77-89.; in Harrison, Chadwick, and Scales, 1996) and high self-efficacy and high self-monitoring (Harrison, Chadwick, and Scales, 1996). Adelman believes Kealey & Ruben’s predictors are what encourage developing adequate support systems in the new environment. Similarly, it is likely that the other personal characteristics that have been shown to help with cross-cultural adjustment further other constructive practices in addition to building social support networks, and that all the personality factors outlined above might be common to third culture kids.

Adaptability versus lack of true cultural balance

Third culture kids are often very adaptable, not only to cross-cultural conditions but to other circumstances as well. They have developed the skills necessary to observe their surroundings for a while and then change languages, ways of relating, appearance, and cultural practices. (Pollock & van Reken, 2001) Hypothesizing beyond this study, third culture kids may be better at seeking out social support from weak ties than non-third culture kids. The same skills help in adjusting to unforeseen circumstances and in being flexible. However, the ease with which they adapt can lead to difficulty in deciding on values and principles and in developing an independent personality. (Pollock & van Reken, 2001)

Blending in versus defining the differences

Third culture kids who belong to the same ethnical group(s) that they live among can often blend in completely simply by adjusting their behavior appropriately. Blending in completely can open possibilities for being part of society, especially in relatively homogenous societies, that would otherwise not be available. Some third culture kids find that they blend in so perfectly that they feel that they have lost their identity and struggle to define what the differences between them and others in their surroundings are.

Less prejudice versus more prejudice

During their childhoods, third culture kids get to know people from different places in the context of their culture and due to their flexibility easily get used to seeing people from all backgrounds as full and equal participants in any given situation. The assumption that people from all backgrounds are, after all, people can be so unconscious and unquestioned that it may surprise others. Third culture kids can learn that there is always a reason for a given behavior and can be patient with understanding behavior. However, when third culture kids live in communities where the contagion effect is at work, third culture kids can end up more prejudiced.

The importance of now versus the delusion of choice

Because of the transitory nature of their lives, many third culture kids appreciate the importance of now and don’t hesitate in doing what they want to do. This can sometimes seem impulsive to others. Other third culture kids react the opposite way. They live their lives with a feeling that there is no point in making plans, because the plans will be disrupted anyway.

Appreciative of authority versus mistrustful of authority

Third culture kids who grow up in the confines of a relatively closed and protective system may associate authority with protection and have a very positive attitude toward authority. Others feel that all of the important decisions that wreaked havoc on their lives were made by authority figures with no regard for the impact on them and are mistrustful of authority.

Real arrogance versus perceived arrogance

The expanded worldview that many third culture kids have can make them impatient and arrogant toward others who only see things from one perspective. Sometimes the explanation is that they forget how much their international childhood has impacted their views and that not everyone has the benefit of that experience. Other times it can serve as a point of identity with other third culture kids. Third culture kids who meet can launch into a bashing session of non-third culture kids. Other times, the arrogance is only perceived. When third culture kids relate stories from their lives, mentions of far-away places can seem like bragging.

Identity for third culture kids

Third culture kids grow up in a genuinely cross-cultural world. While expatriates watch and study cultures that they live in, third culture kids actually live in different cultural worlds. As a result, Pollock and van Reken argue, third culture kids develop a sense of belonging everywhere and nowhere. (Pollock & van Reken, 2001) Third culture kids grow up experiencing distant proximities. The attachments that third culture kids form to the various places they have lived make the distant feel close-at-hand to them. For these reasons, identity poses a problem for many third culture kids.

Identity is something quite nebulous. Often it is spoken of in a manner that suggests that there is an objective reality to identities, and that there are rules for constructing one like there are building codes for houses. One might think, for example, that one cannot claim that one is from another country other than where one was born. Identity is not as simple as that. Identity cannot be calculated by a computer with sufficient background and demographic information. Identity is formed and collected over a lifetime, and what goes in and what doesn’t is decided largely based on feelings. Where one sees connections to others, places, and objects, one identifies. A better way of speaking of these connections is in terms of allegiances. Maalouf suggests that identity best be construed as the sum of all one’s allegiances. (Maalouf, 2000) This definition has several desirable properties. First of all, it permits and explains very complex identities that include seemingly contradictory elements. Second, it explains relative proportions of strength between different allegiances. Some allegiances are stronger than others, and thus those allegiances become a more important part of our identities. Third, it guarantees that the result is truly unique – after all, as Maalouf points out, “my identity is what prevents me from being identical to anyone else.” (Maalouf, 2000, p. 10) No two persons will have the exact same allegiances to everything.

For those people who grow up in one place and only speak one language at home, there will be a strong allegiance to their home town and their language. The home town is the place of comfort, the words and sounds and culture of their language, the language of familiarity. When they are on vacation abroad, hearing a few words of their language drift across the sidewalk provokes a pang of familiarity and identification. These allegiances are often phrased in terms of where someone is from, and are often a major part of identity. When we say someone is from a particular place, what we really mean is that they have a special allegiance only to that place. For third culture kids, that is an assumption that does not hold. There will be several places of comfort, several languages of comfort. Third culture kids can travel from home to another continent and come home. These multiple strong allegiances are not easily cast in the phrase “where you are from.” The uniqueness implied by being “from” somewhere is simply not there.

In the third culture, a set of viewpoints that do not as commonly occur otherwise make themselves noticed. From the vantage point of the third culture, it is almost inevitable not to ask questions about the existence of absolutes. The host culture challenges previous assumptions and introduces new ones. Living in the third culture easily inspires contemplating general, non-culture specific patterns. There are a number of theoretical models of reality that can be seen from the third culture, both in the third culture itself and in the host culture.

Two very practical concerns that spur these thoughts that confront the new arrival almost immediately are construction of identity and how others perceive one’s identity. The “paradox of constructed primordialism” (Appadurai, 1996) is very prevalent. Most people still operate with inflexible, constructed and artificial tribal notions of identity. Using such a vantage point, the “world seems schizophrenic.” (Appadurai, 1996) To explain expatriates and TCKs, extensive somewhat strained “theories of rootlessness” and disjuncture are required. (Appadurai, 1996) This type of identity construction, while unsatisfactory, is extremely prevalent. There are less strained ways of looking at the identity of third culture kids, some of which will be presented here.

Since most third culture kids are at least bilingual, research on bilingualism an identity is relevant to third culture kid identity. Most bilingual people have different parts of their lives, such as school, office, home, community) mapped out in different languages. (Baker, C. (1996) Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (2nd edn). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.; in Kanno, 2000) Where the language maps don’t overlap, the result can be different identities in different languages depending on situation. This means that TCKs often have different identities in not only different situations, but different situations in different countries. Therefore, understanding the relationship between identity, language, and culture is important.

Kanno has studied the relationship between bilingualism and identity examined in kikokushijo (Children of Japanese expatriates. S/he considers the nihonjinron framework that often has been the focus of studies done in Japan unnecessary and believes that his/her findings are much more general. S/he found that the majority language of the dominant culture functions as the key to participation in society, while the minority language was what made them unique, the language of identity. Kanno suggests that this is reflective of two conflicting desires – inclusion and uniqueness. (Kanno, 2000) This fits neatly with Maalouf’s definition of identity in terms of allegiances. The allegiances stay the same, but what role they play depends on the circumstance. The easiest thing to do in order to maintain all allegiances is to use the allegiance to the dominant culture to fit in and use all other allegiances to places as distinguishers.

The links between language, culture and identity

Identity has been shown to influence language choice. Edwards has found that choice of language can be a declaration of identity (Edwards, J. (1985). Language, Society and Identity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.; in Kanno, 2000), and this is also supported by Kanno’s findings. Choice of language is reflective of an allegiance to that language and the culture it is a part of, and therefore specifically choosing one language over another is an act of identity assertion. Language has also been shown to affect identity. In a study of Japanese-American women (Ervin-Tripp, S. (1968). An analysis of the interaction of language, topic, and listener. In J. Fishman (ed.) Readings in the Sociology of Language (p. 192-211). The Hague: Mouton.; in Kanno, 2000) Grosjean (Grosjean, F. (1982). Life with Two Languages: An Introduction to Bilingualism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.; in Kanno, 2000) responses to questions were different depending on what language was spoken, suggesting that the changes are due to the environment and culture attached to the language.

There is a similar relation between culture and identity. Membership in a culture influences identity. Assumptions, beliefs, and values shared with others are a large part of feeling something in common with other people; it is a small step to identify with those who share our beliefs and ideas. On the other hand, identification with a culture results in striving to gain membership in that culture, which in turn entails adopting or actively using the cultural norms of the culture. It would be very difficult to argue that one can share deeper layers of culture without feeling identification with that culture or that one can identify with a culture without being part of it.

Agar (1994) suggests that it is only meaningful to speak of languaculture in place of language and culture, a view that is supported by the links between surface and under the surface layers in Kohl’s culture iceberg and the studies by Edwards (1985), Kanno, 2000, and Ervin-Tripp (1968). In addition, those studies link identity to languaculture in a fundamental way. Temporarily using a definition of identity as simply who you understand yourself to be, this means that most TCKs have, in a sense, multiple identities. Kanno takes multiple identities to be “multiple, fluid, and often contradictory.” (McKay, S. L., & Wong, S.-L. C. (1996) Multiple discourses, multiple identities: Investment and agency in second-language learning among Chinese adolescent immigrant students. Harvard Educational Review 66(3), 579; in Kanno, 2000) For bilinguals, the language worlds of which they are a part lie side by side and their coexistence may not be harmonious. If the self-images projected from one world are contradictory to those projected from another, there are contradictions in self-image overall. (Kanno, 2000) These are in fact some of the documented problems that TCKs encounter. (Pollock & van Reken, 2001)

If language, culture, and identity are all interlinked, the complexity of identity as a function of number of languacultures participated in increases with number of languacultures. However, with respect to languages and cultures, humans seem to count like birds: one, two, many. In the case of languages, the concepts of “monolingual” and “bilingual” have definite spaces. The concepts of “trilingual,” “quadrulingual,” and “tetralingual” do not. After two languacultures, participation in more languacultures is expected to (and frequently does) result in something more general, something overarching binding the languacultures together. Because of the intimate relationship between languaculture and identity, attempting to adopt a general worldview has consequences for identity as well.

The link between culture and psyche

Not only are language, culture, and identity closely linked, thought patterns are linked to this triad via culture. The connection between thought and mind has been explored in studies of the codependency of culture and psyche. Two groups of researchers, Fiske et. al. (Fiske, A., Kitayama, S., Markus, H. R., & Nisbett, R. E. (1998). The cultural matrix of social psychology. In D. Gilbert, S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., p. 915-981). San Francisco: McGraw-Hill.; in Markus & Kitayama, 2003) and Shweder and Sulliven (Shweder, R. A., & Sullivan, M. (1993). Cultural psychology: Who needs it? Annual Review of Psychology, 44, 497-523; in Markus & Kitayama, 2003) studied the mutual constitution of culture and psyche. Their conclusion was that “cultural practices and meanings structure psychological processes which in turn generate, perpetuate, and transform these cultural practices and meanings.” (Markus & Kitayama, 2003, p. 6) They also posited that the way in which both psychological processes and cultural content are mutually constituted and both are in flux leads to changes in sociocultural context, which is then mutually constituted with psychological differences. (Markus & Kitayama, 2003)

What allegiances you have is in part a result of how you conceive the concept of ‘self.’ Markus and Kitayama have outlined two general models for constructing a self, independent and interdependent. An independent self is autonomous and independent, and the actions of the self are seen as disjoint from the actions of others. The interdependent self is connected to others, and the actions of the self are seen as conjoint with the actions of others. The model outlines the extremes, but Markus and Kitayama point out that everyone uses both models, but to different extents. Even within deeply individualistic cultures, there is some degree of interdependent self-building. (Markus & Kitayama, 2003) The cultures closest to the extremes are the United States of America and most Asian cultures. In the United States, autonomy and independence are held as a societal ideal, and connectedness to groups is quickly regarded as too dependent and even weak. In many Asian cultures, like China and Japan, connectedness and belongingness are regarded as a personally satisfying ideal, and independence and disregard for others is quickly regarded as antisocial and destructive. Therefore, these two ways of constructing a self reflect societal values that in turn are reflected in the culture icebergs of each.

The exact composition of independent and interdependent self-construction within an individual varies according to culture and personality, and discovering what combination feels comfortable and is socially constructive is inevitably a process of trial and error. This process can be a source of significant identity crisis and difficulty for TCKs, since the perception of the concept of self lies at one of the deepest layers of culture. Cooley used a looking-glass metaphor for ‘social identity’ (Cooley, C. H. (1902/1983). Human Nature and Social Order. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.; in Kanno, 2000): “Just as we use a mirror to gain an estimate of our physical appearance, so we use the responses of others as a mirror to gain a social estimation of ourselves. (Zaharna, R. S. (1989). Self-shock: The double-binding challenge of identity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 13, 508). Different languaculture communities give different responses, so bilinguals can get widely differing social estimations from different communities. (Kanno, 2000) Because self-construction is a building block of culture, the ‘social mirror’ is sure to reflect an image that cannot be ignored; at the same time, different cultures are very likely to reflect different images of the same actions, making it difficult for a TCK to be consistent in their actions and beliefs.

These two models for self-construction also give rise to different ways of inducing changes. A particular way of inducing changes is called a model of agency by Markus and Kitayama. They define models of agency as “implicit frameworks of ideas and practices about how to be that construct the actions of the self, of others, and the relationships among those actions.” (Markus & Kitayama, 2003, p. 6) Models of agency are often invisible to those who use them. In the disjoint model of self-construction, models of agency are self-focused, express and affirm the independent self. The agentic feelings include esteem, efficacy, and power. Actions are seen as diagnostic of the self, individuals are seen as responsible for actions, and individuals seek to be actively controlling. The conjoint model is relationship-focused and affirms the interdependent self and social position. Agentic feelings include relatedness, connectedness, solidarity, and sympathy. Actions are seen as diagnostic of the nature of relationships and consequences of actions are shared among those in relationships. Actions serve to actively adjust to others. Choice is central to asserting individuality in the disjoint model, while choice builds relationships in the conjoint model. People using the conjoint model worry about making the appropriate choice for others, while people using the disjoint model worry about making choice they themselves like. (Markus & Kitayama, 2003)

These models accompany the two ways to construct a self. However, it is important to keep in mind with respect to both that no society uses one exclusively or that different parts of society may use different variations. Class differences can manifest themselves along these same dimensions. The disjoint model is most representative of educated European American men. The trends (at least in the United States) appear to be that better education results in a more individualistic stance, that European Americans are more individualistic than Hispanics or African Americans, and that men are more individualistic than women. (Markus & Kitayama, 2003) For the same reasons that models of self-construction can be especially problematic for TCKs, models of agency can be too. Models of agency are also salient for identity for another reason: they allow (or require) the TCK to pick a social role within a given languaculture. Picking a languaculture is not enough. This adds further complexity to identity.

Third culture kid identity development

Barbara Schaetti has tried to answer the question “What is the process by which global nomads transact the developmental tasks necessary for an achieved identity?” in her doctoral dissertation. (Schaetti, 2001) Schaetti took a developmental approach to identity rather than an outcome-focused approach. She studied the developmental tasks necessary to arrive at an achieved identity. An achieved identity is an identity that an individual has been explored, tested, and committed to. Schaetti proposes that global nomad identity development is a search for identity congruence, and that there is a broad range of identity outcomes. (Schaetti, 2001) Before outlining her theory, some terms are explained here.

Self-concept and reference group orientation

Self-concept is defined by Cross ((Cross, W. E. (1991). Shades of Black. Diversity in African-American Identity. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.; in Schaetti, 2001) to be the sum of personal identity, unaffected by roles or relationships, and reference group orientation (RGO), derived from memberships in groups, relationships, social position, and status. Reference group orientation is related to worldview and ideologies. It is considered to have four functions: buffering, bonding, bridging (Cross, W. E. (1991). Shades of Black. Diversity in African-American Identity. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.; Cross, W. E., Jr. (1995). The Psychology of Nigrescence: Revising the Cross Model. In J. G. Ponterotto, J. M. Casa, L. A. Suzuki, & C. M. Alexander (Eds.), Handbook of Multicultural Counseling. Newbury Park: Sage Press.; in Schaetti, 2001), and code-switching (Cross, W. E. (1997). Racial and Cultural Identity Development. Paper presented at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication, Portland, Oregon.; Schaetti, 2001). Buffering is a psychologically protective function of identity that serves to help navigate threats to identity. Bonding provides a sense of belonging with others of similar background. Bridging allows people to connect with others of dissimilar background. Code-switching allows individuals to move from one cultural context to another. Code-switching is therefore not used by everyone. Only those individuals who need to code-switch use this function of identity. (Schaetti, 2001)

Ascribed and affirmed identity

An ascribed identity is an identity imposed on an individual based on perceptions of appearance and what the ascriber considers important. An affirmed identity is an identity that the bearer affirms and feels comfortable with.

Transactions

A transaction is an interactive process between an individual global nomad or third culture kid and his or her lived experience resulting in new levels of clarity and integration and an improvement in the relationship with the experience, and presupposes some conscious exploration and reflection. (Schaetti, 2001) Schaetti gives four identity transactions: Repatriation, nationality, difference, and plurality. The identity transactions are closely interlinked. They are also called developmental tasks.

Schaetti’s developmental model

Schaetti concluded that for the global nomads in her study, there were seven stages of identity development. (Schaetti, 2001)

Stage 1: Reflexive observation in childhood and adolescence

Before contemplating the influence of an international childhood, individuals in this stage have no language and no context for thinking about the impact of their childhood on their identity. Their relationship to their international childhood is diffuse, untested, and unclear.

Stage 2: Fact of Experience encounter in adolescence and adulthood

The Fact of Experience (FOE) encounter is an encounter that makes the individual consciously aware of their experiences as being different from those of others. The FOE encounter makes the individual highly conscious and self-reflective about their social and personal background, and how those backgrounds have resulted in being different from other host or passport country peers. The core of the FOE experience is transacting difference, involving transactions of repatriation, nationality, and plurality. Those who are purposefully observant often see incongruencies in their past, present, and intended future identities. This prompts a further search for identity congruence, which leads to FOE exploration, the next stage in the identity development.

Stage 3: FOE exploration in adolescence and adulthood

FOE exploration is typically done in isolation, due to the common lack of guidance from others in the individual’s surroundings and that the FOE experiences do not in and of themselves suggest a clear next step. This can result in feeling very isolated and alone. FOE exploration can take many different forms. It is driven by the developmental tasks of repatriation, nationality, difference, and plurality, and is essentially a trial-and-error process. The feedback and new input received on tested transaction strategies contributes to the direction the individual will take. All of the participants in the study acquired high salience for FOE exploration. Salience is the importance of an occurrence or construct. If a reference group is encountered, whether it be the terms ‘global nomad,’ third culture kid,’ similar terms in other languages, or other either more general or more particular groups, that encounter does suggest a next step: Reference Group Orientation Exploration.

Transacting repatriation

Schaetti uses repatriation to mean both moving back to the passport country and moving from the third culture into a monocultural environment. Repatriating global nomads can transact the repatriation to three outcomes: Homecomer, Stranger, and Cosmopolite. The Homecomer expects to return home and indeed does. The Stranger expects to come home and realizes s/he did not. The Cosmopolite expects to be a stranger and arrives ready to make a new home as well as s/he can. Schaetti’s results indicate that childhood and adolescent repatriations are usually transacted as Strangers, and adult repatriations are usually transacted as Cosmopolites. Schaetti hypothesizes that if an individual has not started to transact the other three developmental tasks in this stage will likely have a significant encounter experience in one or more of them upon repatriation. All of the subjects in her study had begun transacting nationality, difference, and plurality while still in the third culture, however.

Transacting nationality

Transacting nationality after repatriation is typically closely interconnected with the transaction of repatriation, so closely intertwined that nationality transaction occurs simultaneously with transacting repatriation. There are three outcomes to transacting nationality: National identity, International identity, and Transnational identity. Linking of the three outcomes of transacting nationality and the three outcomes of transacting repatriation gives seven developmental pathways. In Schaetti’s study, the first three are generally hypothesized and the last four were described by participants in the study.

1. Homecomer develops a National identity. The global nomad feels relieved to be home and are sorry they ever had to leave.
2. Homecomer develops an International identity. The global nomad feels relieved to be home, but is positive toward international experiences and maintain an interest in global matters.
3. Stranger develops a National identity. The global nomad experiences cultural marginality strongly upon repatriation and feel that they are the problem. They close off their international past and accentuate their patriotism.
4. Stranger develops an International Identity. The global nomad experiences cultural marginality strongly upon repatriation, but eventually learn to fit in. They become comfortable with their passport country and develop a primary identification with it, even though they retain their connection to the international.
5. Stranger develops a Transnational identity. The global nomad experiences cultural marginality strongly upon repatriation, and in response extends their identity and their allegiances over and beyond national boundaries. They may see national boundaries as dangerous and harmful and see their citizenship as a matter of fact rather than a matter of importance.
6. Cosmopolite develops an International identity. The global nomad feels comfortable with being different, yet maintain identification with the passport country and maintain strong international connections.
7. Cosmopolite develops a Transnational identity. The global nomad feels comfortable with being different and identify as global citizens, extending their identity and allegiances over and beyond national boundaries to include the entire human family.

Transacting difference

All participants in Schaetti’s study eventually transacted difference in a way that led to resolving it Constructively and remaining Encapsulated within their marginality. Persons who are Constructive in their pluralities “actively integrate and celebrate the cultural codification of multiple cultures within one body” (Hicks, M. A. (1998). A Multicultural Self as Pedagogy: Making Connection with Self and Other: unpublished paper, p. 6; in Schaetti, 2001, 51). Persons who are Encapsulated have multiple identities that are mostly disconnected from each other. (Hicks, M. (1995). Learning To Know: The Multicultural Self and Liberal Education. Columbia University, New York.; in Schaetti, 2001) She suggests from anecdotal evidence that others may live their lives at odds with their difference and reject their marginality.

Transacting plurality

The majority of global nomads transact the plurality in their lives into a Contextual Relativism stance. Contextual Relativism is the idea that truth depends on context. Other global nomads transact plurality into Commitment Within Relativism, the idea that there is a constant inner coherence to truth despite some possibly quite extensive dependence of truth on context. All of the participants in the study transacted plurality to one or both of these resolutions.

Stage 5: Reference group orientation exploration

There are many ways in which this stage can be experienced. The main characteristic of this stage is at least some immersion into matters concerning the reference group encountered. The immersion serves as a means to normalize and integrate experiences of dominant and marginal paradigms. The depth and time span of this stage can vary greatly, but it can often be the central activity in the global nomad’s life for some time. Those who already have a relatively congruent identity and those who encounter the RGO in a negative light tend to explore the RGO less. Many in this stage reach out to members of their reference group and may prompt an RGO encounter for others.

RGO exploration has a direct impact on the transaction of the four developmental identity tasks. The validation of their experiences that the RGO exploration can provide impetus to transact future repatriations as Cosmopolites, transact nationality to International or Transnational, normalize difference to a Constructive experience of marginality, and to find a Commitment Within Relativism.

Stage 6: Internalization

The results of the FOE and RGO exploration has changed perceptions of past, present, and desired future identities. In this stage, the developmental tasks will have been resolved. The participants in Schaetti’s study were generally Constructive International or Transnational Cosmopolites with Constructive Relativism or Commitment Within Relativism resolutions to plurality transacting. They emerged with flexible ways of negotiating and expressing a multicultural self-concept and typically reserved the right to choose how to articulate their identity based on personal volition and societal context. They emerged with either a hierarchy of identities or an integrated identity.

Stage 7: Identity recycling and life-span enhancement

Those with high salience for their FOE and RGO explorations but an encapsulated global nomad identity often recycle FOE and RGO exploration. A new encounter experience occurs, and the individual goes through the cycle again. Those with Constructive high salience identities can be prompted to take another look at FOE and RGO exploration by events. Global nomads that attribute low salience to FOE and RGO exploration are likely to use other identity constructs instead.

The identity development of a global nomad is a life-time process. Some of the dimensions along which experiences differ and therefore impact identity development are:

• Age of first expatriation, age at subsequent moves, age of repatriation(s)
• Citizenship of family members
• Length of stay in each country and total length of time away from passport country
• Number of host countries and culture differences between the host countries and the passport country
• Sponsoring organization and influence of sponsoring organization
• Types of schools attended,
• Personality development, including attachment style
• Family openness and experience with the international milieu

In addition to these factors, if and how people in the surroundings consciously point the global nomad in a particular direction influences identity development.

Schaetti theorizes that as awareness of this phenomenon increases in expatriate circles, there is a trend toward younger and younger RGO encounters. The participants in her study support this theory. She also theorizes that the two tracks of FOE and RGO exploration may disappear, when individuals encounter the RGO before they have had their FOE so that they combine.

Global Citizens

Hypothesizing beyond this study, it is likely that global nomads who are also Affirmative Globals will combine the two into a truly global identity. Here, I outline what such an identity might entail.

‘Global Citizen’ is an identity needed by some third culture kids

For third culture kids, it is often difficult emotionally and socially to claim one or even multiple national identities. Third culture kids have allegiances to most of the countries they have lived in, and the tendency of others to see national identities as nearly tribal makes it difficult for others to accept the validity of having several such allegiances. In addition, the interstitial nature of the third culture and the adaptive way of life of a child expatriate easily encourage a de-emphasis on the importance of national identity. As a result, many feel that they are from everywhere, that they are global citizens. This kind of global identification is emerging as an increasingly used identity for third culture kids and certain other global people as well.

Global citizen identity is universally oriented

The feeling global citizens have of being from “everywhere” implies a universal mindset. A global citizen identity is founded on inclusion and generality rather than exclusion based on particularism. For example, a religious identity is based on excluding everyone but co-religionists from the Self, making everyone else Other. Political identities are based on making those of a certain political orientation Self and those of other orientations, especially the perceived diametrically opposite one Other. Global citizens are required to instead think in terms of universals that can be used to make all cultures and countries Self.

Adler defined ‘multicultural man (sic)’ as “a human being whose identifications and loyalties transcend the boundaries of nationalism and whose commitments are pinned to a vision of the world as a global community.” (Adler, P. (1974). Beyond Cultural Identity: Reflections on Cultural and Multicultural man. In R. Brislin (Ed.), Topics in Culture Learning (Vol 2). Honolulu, HI: East-West Center, p. 23; in Schaetti, 2001, p. 45) Because the term ‘multicultural person’ has now come to mean someone who is part of more than two cultures, I will use the term global citizen instead. A global citizen’s “essential identity is inclusive of life patterns different from their own and has psychologically and socially come to grips with a multiplicity of realities.” (Adler, P. (1974). Beyond Cultural Identity: Reflections on Cultural and Multicultural man. In R. Brislin (Ed.), Topics in Culture Learning (Vol 2). Honolulu, HI: East-West Center, p. 24; in Schaetti, 2001, p. 45) Global citizens “embod[y] a core process of self-verification that is grounded in both the universality of the human condition and in the diversity of man’s cultural forms.” (Adler, P. (1974). Beyond Cultural Identity: Reflections on Cultural and Multicultural man. In R. Brislin (Ed.), Topics in Culture Learning (Vol 2). Honolulu, HI: East-West Center, p. 24; in Schaetti, 2001, p. 45) Their identity is based “not on a ‘belongingness,’ which implies either owning or being owned by the culture, but on a style of self-consciousness that is capable of negotiating ever new formations of reality.” (Adler, P. (1974). Beyond Cultural Identity: Reflections on Cultural and Multicultural man. In R. Brislin (Ed.), Topics in Culture Learning (Vol 2). Honolulu, HI: East-West Center, p. 25; in Schaetti, 2001) Global citizens are, in other words, psychoculturally pliable. (Adler, P. (1974). Beyond Cultural Identity: Reflections on Cultural and Multicultural man. In R. Brislin (Ed.), Topics in Culture Learning (Vol 2). Honolulu, HI: East-West Center, p. 34; in Schaetti, 2001)

Global citizen identity is different from territorial identities

The main contrast of global citizen identity to any other identity emerges in comparison to national, regional, or local identities. In terms of allegiances, a national identity requires an allegiance to a nation, a regional identity requires an allegiance to a geographical region, and a local identity requires an allegiance to a city or town. These are very commonly used identities and are familiar to most people. However, global citizens feel a delocalized allegiance to the world as a whole. While global citizens may have additional allegiances to particular places they have lived, those locales figure as particular, somewhat arbitrary picks out of the set of possibilities that global citizens know that they could have felt an allegiance to. It may seem difficult to make such an overarching identification with humanity a primary identity, instead of a territory based identity. The dynamic that gives rise to such an allegiance is related to what is required for a more specific identity. Here, the case will be made using national identity. The argument for regional and local identities is very similar.

National communities are imagined communities, in the sense that even in the smallest of nations it is impossible for all the citizens to know each other as a straightforward community. Instead, nationalities are constructed in the collective imagination. Historically, they have been constructed to changed by rulers or politicians. A very common element in national identities is tribalism; that is, they build on some notion of shared blood and shared history to build imagined ties between citizens. Some national identities are more exclusive than others. Japan, for example, is famous for its notion of “We the Japanese.” America, on the other hand, has relatively little of shared blood and history elements and bases its national identity more on political beliefs. However, all national identities have a ‘list of requirements’ for inclusion. Citizenship is often an important requirement, as is speaking the language and having heritage in the country.

There are many groups of people that are completely or partially excluded from national identities in the countries where they live. Immigrants, expatriates, and refugees are some common examples. However, most people who live in a particular place build an allegiance to that place. This easily results in an allegiance without social acceptance of inclusion in nationality. Sometimes long-time expatriates or immigrants can be given ‘honorary’ national identity by acquaintances, a sign that being included in national identity can be difficult indeed.

Third culture kids and others who have been mobile frequently do not meet criteria for inclusion in places that they feel allegiances to, or seem to meet the criteria but do not feel the clear, strong allegiance to one nation that a national identity requires. This leaves them little choice but to see their identities and allegiances in less specific terms. If one cannot claim any nationality both socially and whole-heartedly, there is not much else to do than to see one’s allegiances as reflective of a more cosmopolitan worldview.

Global citizen identity more general than bicultural identity

Some would point out that not having a single, clear national identity is not new and that TCKs could simply adopt a bi- or multicultural identity instead of a global one. This is true, and some do. However, a bi- or multicultural identity is qualitatively different from a global citizen identity.

A bi- or multicultural identity implies feeling strong allegiances to a certain number of cultures or countries, usually taken to be fairly few. A perception that it is largely a matter of chance and circumstance which cultures one has lived in and being comfortable with the idea of being able to adapt to new cultures in the future makes maintaining strong allegiances to only those cultures or countries difficult. If one can imagine oneself as not significantly different (correctly or not) despite having lived in a completely different set of countries, then having a bi- or multi-cultural identity comes very close to having a randomly chosen identity, which is unlikely to inspire strong allegiances. Even without a strong conviction that one is ‘country-independent,’ being comfortable with adapting to new cultures in the future is identifying with a wider context than that of a sum of a number of cultures. Therefore, a global citizen identification is more than a bi- or multicultural identification.

Global citizen identity is different from immigrant identity

Immigrants who attempt to sustain binational identities are often asked to choose between the identities. Due to the expected long-term investment in living in the host country, immigrants often weaken one national identity and strengthen the other. However, expatriates and their children expect to leave the host country, and therefore are not as willing or as required to give up their old identities. The social role differences between expatriates and immigrants gives rise to different expectations of behavior and identity. In addition, global citizens have most likely gone through the whole expatriate cycle at least once, making the expatriation part of a pattern rather than a one-time experience.

Global citizen identity is different from expatriate identity

Expatriates that are not global citizens often have a very strong sense of national identity. This is both a psychological advantage and an expectation on the part of host country nationals. A recent study of depression in expatriates found that among other things, depression correlated positively with weak identification with people from the same passport country. (Ward & Rana-Deuba, 1999) Global citizens, however, identify with having dual insider and outsider status rather than with the national identity associated with the country where they came from, either on paper or physically.

An identity based on multiple more specific identities is not practical because it can only accommodate very few, infrequent changes. If it seems to someone that they will have to keep adding specific identities relatively frequently, it is a very small logical step to identify more generally as to avoid the pain of having to remold identity completely each time the pattern repeats. Therefore, a global citizen identity may seem both more practical and more appropriate.