third culture kids (TCKs) - children who spend a significant portion of their developmental years in a culture outside their parents’ passport culture(s) - is increasing exponentially. Not only is their number increasing, but the cultural complexity and relevance of their experience and the adult TCKs (ATCKs) they become, is also growing. When Ruth Hill Useem, a sociologist, first coined this term in the 1950s, she spent a year researching expatriates in India. She discovered that folks who came from their home (or first) culture and moved to a host (or second) culture, had, in reality, formed a culture, or lifestyle, different from either the first or second cultures. She called this the third culture and the children who grew up in this lifestyle ‘third culture kids’. At that time, most expatriate families had parents from the same culture and they often remained in one host culture while overseas. This is no longer the case. Take, for example, Brice Royer, the founder ofTCKid.com. His father is a half-French/half-Vietnamese UN peacekeeper, while his mom is Ethiopian. Brice lived in seven countries before he was eighteen including France, Mayotte, La Reunion, Ethiopia, Egypt, Canada and England. He writes, ‘When people ask me “Where are you from?” I just joke around and say, “My mom says I’m from heaven.”’ What other answer can he give? ATCK Elizabeth Dunbar’s father, Roy, moved from Jamaica to Britain as a young boy. Her mother, Hortense, was born in Britain as the child of Jamaican immigrants who always planned to repatriate ‘one day’. While Elizabeth began life in Britain, her dad’s international career took the family to the United States, then to Venezuela and back to living in three different cities in the U.S. She soon realised that while racial diversity may be recognised,
