What is a Third Culture Kid (TCK)?

Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a term used to describe people who spend a significant part of childhood living outside their passport countries. This description was first coined by Dr. Ruth Hill Useem while studying children of American families living in India in the 1950s. These children were not Indian, though they lived in India. They were American citizens, but weren’t experiencing life in that country. Their childhood experience was neither that of a typical Indian child nor that of a typical American child. It was somewhere in between – in a Third Culture.

Even where the acronym TCK is fairly well known, it is often misunderstood. Most people assume that the “Third” part of a “Third Culture Kid” comes from simple addition of 1 + 2 = 3. That is, my first country (home) plus my second country (where I live) equals a mixed up third culture. While there’s a little something to that, the reality is quite different.  

“Third Culture” doesn’t mean a combination of two cultures to form a third. Many TCKs are connected to more than two or three cultures. In fact, most TCKs I know have encountered more than three or even four countries. This leads them to wonder if they should be called “Fourth Culture Kids” or “Fifth Culture Kids.” They instinctively know that three countries can never sum up all of who they are. But the three cultures of a Third Culture Kid are not a number we count — not how many countries influence a person. Instead, they are three types of cultural influence.

First Culture: Legal Culture

A legal culture is any country that grants me legal recognition. That is, the government accepts me as one of their own — with citizenship (a passport), or permanent residency (a green card or equivalent, not just a long term visa). I have legal rights of belonging, and legal responsibilities as well. Thirty-five percent of TCKs have more than one legal culture (results from the survey of 750 TCKs I conducted in 2015 for Misunderstood) and that percentage has held true in international school classrooms I’ve visited around the world.

In my first culture I have a piece of paper that says I belong. But having a passport isn’t the same as having experiential connections. The experience of growing up in places where I do not have legal recognition has an emotional impact. The country I legally belong to doesn’t completely feel like home, as I didn’t share in all the same childhood experiences of peers who spent all of childhood there.

“Singapore has always been very foreign to me, but when people asked where I was from, I replied: “Singapore.” It was a reflex. In high school, when people asked where I was from, I still said Singapore, but I knew it simply meant the country printed on my passport.
— Stephanie, 20”

Misunderstood, page 254

The Second Culture: Geographic

The second category of cultures are Geographic Cultures. These are cultures I experience first-hand. These are the places where I have physically lived and emotionally engaged whether or not I had citizenship. I am legally connected to my legal cultures; I am experientially engaged with my geographic cultures. First cultures are legal realities, whereas second cultures are geographic realities - places I have engaged and spent time and made memories. 

My legal culture might also be a geographic culture, but not necessarily. Some TCKs have no overlap in their first and second cultures. That is, they have never lived in the places they have legal recognition, and have no legal recognition in the places where they do live.Many TCKs have multiple second cultures. 40% of TCKs I surveyed had four or more geographic cultures; 10% had six or more.

I also include ‘heritage cultures’ in this category. A heritage culture is a culture I have no legal connection to, and have never lived in myself, but engage with meaningfully throughout my childhood because it forms part of my family’s cultural heritage. For example, if my parent immigrated from a country I have never entered or had citizenship from, but I engage with this cultural heritage through my senses and thought-processes (i.e. values, language, food, music, etc.).

“My parents were born and raised in Korea and moved to the States after high school. . . We celebrated both American Thanksgiving and traditional Korean New Year. We visited relatives both in Korea and in the States. And all this happened as we grew up in China.
— Eugene, 21”

Misunderstood, page 96

The Third Culture: Relational

The Third Culture is not about where you are from, or where you have lived. It is about the shared experience of a childhood where your first and second cultures don’t fully overlap.  A more typical childhood experience is growing up in a country where I have legal recognition—the first and second culture are one and the same. For many TCKs there is comfort and understanding in having a shared Third Culture, especially when feeling out-of-step with both Legal and Geographic cultures.

The Third Culture is the childhood home of those who did not experience comprehensive connection to a single place as children. It is located not in geography, but in relationships. While the first and second cultures are primarily about place, the third culture is about experience: the experience of growing up between first and second cultures that do not perfectly align.

“As a TCK, I often feel that I cannot truly relate to those around me. I function in two worlds at once. I have gained a broad knowledge of the world while missing the more specific aspects of cultural understanding that come with spending a lifetime in one place.
— Heidi, 24”

Misunderstood, page 23

The Third Culture is a Relational Culture – woven together from overlapping experiences of life lived in between. It embraces people who share a childhood not geographically but experientially. It may be different in nature to legal and geographic cultures, but it is just as much a source of identity.

What This All Means

TCKs do not grow up in any one culture, but in between them, influenced by multiple cultures. Two TCKs with no overlaps in their first and second cultures do not share a place and yet still share a childhood experience. 

Childhood for TCKs is rooted in communities that move on, with a mixture of cultures and places that is difficult to replicate. The constant transition of international life (whether I leave, or others leave me) has an impact. There are also unique experiences that go with international living that often form the backdrop of an international childhood. These shared experiences of childhood are what the third culture is all about.

Growing up in your legal culture means a comprehensive connection – you are legally attached to the place to which you are emotionally attached. Third Culture Kids don’t generally have this comprehensive connection. Instead, it is in the Third Culture they find the comfort and connection of shared experience. For them, the Third Culture is a place of belonging.

“The Third Culture is our home. It is where we ‘belong’ and relate to people as others do in their hometowns.
— Lisa, 24”

Misunderstood, page 7

The Third Culture is neither a legal nor a geographic entity – but it is real.

TCKs are people who grew up in this ‘place’ – the Third Culture.

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Want to know more? I run a workshop on Cross Cultural Foundations which includes information on Third Culture Kids and Cross Culture Kids. You can book a private session anytime. I also have a free session coming up at the end of November!