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

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saija Benjamin ◽  
Arniika Kuusisto
Keyword(s):  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Third Culture ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Third Culture Kid ◽  
Methodological Considerations

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.

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

2016 ◽  
pp. 1455-1471
Author(s):  
Saija Benjamin ◽  
Arniika Kuusisto
Keyword(s):  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Third Culture ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Third Culture Kid ◽  
Methodological Considerations

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.

scholarly journals Escaping National Tags and Embracing Diversity: Third Culture Kid Songwriters

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-24
Author(s):  
Jessica Sanfilippo-Schulz
Keyword(s):  
Career Choices ◽  
Imagined Communities ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Third Culture ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Third Culture Kid ◽  
Song Lyrics ◽  
Song Texts

Abstract Nowadays, more and more writers cannot be classified according to one single nation. Whereas in Imagined Communities Anderson describes the development of nations and national belongings, in Third Culture Kid (TCK) discourse a central theme is the concept of not belonging to one specific nation or culture (“NatioNILism”). TCKs are individuals who were raised moving from one country to the next due to their parents’ career choices. Not having had a fixed home while growing up, rather than accepting classifications according to nations and cultures, many TCKs prefer to embrace diversity. Antje Rauwerda argues that the fiction of adult TCKs comprises typical features that reflect the consequences of a displaced international childhood and accordingly coins the new literary classification Third Culture Literature. Whereas Rauwerda exclusively analyses novels written by TCKs, this article examines whether the effects of hypermobile international childhoods can be detected in the works of TCK songwriters. By analysing not only the song lyrics of contemporary musicians such as Haikaa, Sinkane and Tanita Tikaram but also the artists’ views regarding issues such as belonging, identity and transience, it will be shown that in the scholarly realm the TCK lens can be expanded to song texts too.

The Intersectionalities of Age, Ethnicity, and Class in Organizations

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edeltraud Hanappi-Egger ◽  
Renate Ortlieb
Keyword(s):  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Combined Effects ◽  
Dyadic Relationships ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Age Class ◽  
The Social ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Diversity Studies ◽  
Academic Debate

The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of the academic debate on age, ethnicity, and class, in particular their intersectionalities within organizations. Although the social categories of age and ethnicity are well studied by diversity scholars, literature on the combined effects of these dimensions for individuals and organizations is still scarce. This holds even more for the category of class. While there exist scattered analyses of class-related issues within the field of diversity studies, up to now there is no analysis that considers the interplay of class with both age and ethnicity. Against this background the chapter examines the age–ethnicity–class intersectionality by concentrating on the three dyadic relationships: age–ethnicity, age–class, and class–ethnicity. It provides a summary of previous research findings, a critical reflection of thinking that relies on social categories, and a discussion of avenues for future research.

How an Antipodean Perspective of International Schooling Challenges Third Culture Kid (TCK) Conceptualisation

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Fanning ◽  
Edgar Burns
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Third Culture Kids ◽  
Educational Opportunities ◽  
Third Culture ◽  
Secondary Schooling ◽  
Third Culture Kid ◽  
The Third ◽  
Global Movement ◽  
Cultural Reality

This article recounts the story of Jack’s primary and secondary schooling career across several countries and eventual relocation and tertiary education in Victoria, Australia. His narrative is described here as an antipodean educational trajectory. What is meant by antipodean education is contrasted to the long established concept of the third culture kid (TCK). There are overlaps in these concepts. The argument is made, however, that Jack’s travelling and multiple education cultural mix gives him a different sense of himself that is not fully accounted for in the TCK literature. Global movement of people for employment and other reasons such as politics, governmental or service professions, continues today, Taking children with working and mobile parents has long been characterised as creating third culture kids who do not belong to either originating or hosting societies. Today, however, it is less the case that this can be adequately described as travel ‘out from’ and ‘back to’ the geo-political centres. This changing socio-cultural reality means re-examining what kinds of educational opportunities and experiences children are exposed to and the effects of these on young people.

scholarly journals A phenomenological study of gifted cross-cultural kids at an international school : exploration of intersecting identities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Seth Jaeger
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Phenomenological Study ◽  
International Schools ◽  
Gifted Students ◽  
International School ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Third Culture ◽  
Cross Culture ◽  
Third Culture Kid ◽  
Gifted Program

There are several common characteristics between cross-cultural students and gifted students (Gallagher, 2019; Sheard, 2008). At the same time, there is limited research into practices of international schools when identifying and supporting these highly-mobile gifted students (Gallagher and Curtain, 2017; Robinson, 2006). This lack of evidence suggests that many international schools do not cater for the needs of culturally and linguistically (CLD) gifted students by offering tailored programs for differentiation. Framed within the Third Culture Kid (TCK) identity construct, this phenomenological study investigates the experiences of identified gifted students who are being educated in an elite American-curriculum international school in South America. Utilizing qualitative data, this study seeks to answer the following question: how do gifted Cross-Cultural Kids understand the intersection of their gifted and cross culture identities? This study contextualizes that question inside the organizational environment of the school that used selection criteria based on the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT), the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), and the Renzulli Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students (RSRBCSS) for a gifted program. Through maximum variation sampling, 9 gifted third-culture students from middle and high school who have spent a portion of their academic careers in international schools were selected for interviews.

scholarly journals What is Home for a Third Culture Kid?

2018 ◽  
pp. 9-18
Author(s):  
I. Alyeksyeyeva
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Future Orientation ◽  
Typical Feature ◽  
Place Identity ◽  
Third Culture Kids ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Third Culture ◽  
Third Culture Kid ◽  
High Competence

The article looks into the HOME concept as it is verbalized in discourse of Third Culture Kids (TCKs), a social group defined as people who have spent a considerable period of their developmental years in a culture different from that of their parents’. The topicality of the study rests on the fact that though the sociological research into the TCK phenomenon started in the 1950s, yet it is only in the 21st century that cognitive linguistics, cultural linguistics, socio- and psycholinguistics start to examine this social group. Since current globalization processes have turned workforce migration into a typical feature of modern societies, parents’ mobility exposes more and more children to two or more cultures. As long as children face cultural differences before their identity has been constructed, they have difficulty affiliating with any social group. The analysis of the terms used as synonyms for TCK has revealed that the components of this concept are ‘mobility’ (interpreted either as occasional relocation or as a lifestyle feature), ‘belonging’ (to the whole world rather than a country or region) and future orientation (next generations are expected to be made up largely by TCKs). Regular moves change TCKs’ perception of the most natural human concepts. Thus, the concept HOME becomes quite puzzling and controversial and may be interpreted in a number of ways: from a place where one is currently living to everywhere or nowhere. The HOME concept is vital for one’s self-identification: it gives one a sense of belonging and anchors one emotionally to a place and a community. However, TCKs, well-versed in saying goodbyes, tend to avoid bonding, i,e. strategies aimed at forming close relations, though they acquire a high competence in bridging, i.e. in strategies that deal with overcoming cultural dissimilarities. Understanding a partner’s place identity helps to make their behaviour and their worldview predictable, which turns the ‘Where are you from?’ question into a typical one at the first encounter. It is this very question that is inevitably perceived by TCKs as a challenge, since they are conscious of their vague or peculiar conceptualization of the HOME concept.

Third-Culture Kid Pilots and Multi-Cultural Identity Effects on Pilots’ Attitudes

2019 ◽  
Vol 90 (12) ◽  
pp. 1026-1033 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley Tsz-Kin Chan ◽  
Don Harris
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Work Values ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Third Culture ◽  
Training Design ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Third Culture Kid ◽  
Self Evaluation ◽  
Similar Work ◽  
Mainstream Culture

BACKGROUND: Current attempts to culturally tailor human factors training in aviation segregates cultural identities based on geopolitical, passport nationality, and is therefore poorly suited for (adult) ‘Third Culture Kids’ (TCKs) whose cross-cultural upbringing has led to the development of multicultural individual identities that do not reflect their passport nationalities. In this study, respondents’ self-categorization of personal cultural identity, as opposed to passport nationality, was used to determine whether there were cultural differences in airline pilots’ behaviors.METHOD: A survey with items imported from established scales was distributed to pilots of an international airline to measure pilots’ work values, flight management attitudes, and cultural dimensions, with respondents segregated into Western, TCK, or Asian cultural groups.RESULTS: TCKs shared similar work values with Westerners, were similarly individualistic, had comparable preference for shallow command gradients, were similarly pragmatic in self-evaluation of performance under stress, and both had lower dependency and preference for rules and procedures. TCKs scored in the middle between Westerners and Asians in automation preference attitudes, and on the cultural dimensions of power distance and uncertainty avoidance. TCKs did not share any similarities with Asians at all.DISCUSSION: The results show that TCKs were neither assimilated into a mainstream culture, nor culturally “middle of the pack” as may be expected from their “East meets West” backgrounds. Having identified TCK pilots’ unique values, attitudes, and dimensions, practical implications include changing training design to better suit TCKs’ cultural characteristics and the adaptation of airline management to cater for TCKs’ work values.Chan WT-K, Harris D. Third-culture kid pilots and multi-cultural identity effects on pilots’ attitudes. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2019; 90(12):1026–1033.

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