Third Culture Kids or Marginalized Future Obreros: A Consideration of Transnational Students in Mexican Schools and What 'We' Might Want for Them

This paper uses part of the data from a larger qualitative inquiry in two International Baccalaureate schools, one in Australia and one in an Indian Ocean Island Nation (a pseudonym), to identify the factors and forces that contribute to the sense of self and understanding of and engagement with the notion of international mindedness in two ‘third culture kids’. Socio-cultural theory is used as a conceptual framework to explore cross-cultural differences and similarities between the students and the schooling contexts. Analysing the students’ perspectives about their understandings of international mindedness through grounded theory methods, the paper also develops hypotheses on the notions of being, belonging and becoming.

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A Critical Review of the Term ‘Third Culture Kids (TCKs)' and Search for Alternatives: Proposal of the Term ‘Cross-Culture Kids(CCKs)’

The Jounal of Cultural Exchange ◽

10.30974/kaice.2021.10.2.12 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 291-313

Author(s):

Sookyoung Lee ◽

Keyword(s):

Critical Review ◽

Third Culture Kids ◽

Third Culture ◽

Cross Culture

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Transferring Literacy and Subject Knowledge Between Disparate Educational Systems

Intercultural Families and Schooling in Japan: Experiences, Issues, and Challenges ◽

10.47908/12/6 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 118-148

Author(s):

Meredith Stephens

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

School Curriculum ◽

Third Culture Kids ◽

Educational Systems ◽

First Year ◽

Tertiary Level ◽

Educational Choice ◽

Third Culture ◽

Subject Knowledge ◽

Japanese Schools

This is a retrospective longitudinal study of the education of two Australian third culture kids who attended local Japanese schools from preschool to the first year of high school. This is a postmodern account, set in the 21st century, of transition to a radically different educational system. Many postmodern accounts describe obtaining an education in a new country due to migration in order to escape persecution (e.g. Antin, 1997; Hoffman, 1989). In contrast, the current study explores an alternative educational choice made by parents who had relocated to a remote region of Japan for employment. The choice to educate their children locally was due to both an interest in and respect for the local culture, as well as convenience. This account concerns their daughters’ experience of the Japanese public school curriculum from the first year of primary school to the first year of high school, and how this equipped them for the final two years of high school and beyond. In particular, it addresses the ways in which they viewed their learning in Years 11 and 12, and at the tertiary level in Australia, to have been influenced by their experiences of the Japanese curriculum.

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