Growing up outside your culture of origin can present lifelong challenges, but it can also build resilience and provide an ability to see the world in a different way

Some people grow up in a place they’ve always known – where the language is native, food is familiar and values, beliefs, customs and traditions feel like home. Others grow up in many locations, moving from place to place in a way that can create a sense of disconnect and un-belonging that is difficult to heal. At the same time, however, this diversity of experience can help to establish an unshakeable inner foundation.

Many people see themselves as global citizens, and there are increasing numbers of children who spend their formative years in places that are not their parents’ homeland. In the 1950s, US sociologist Ruth Hill Useem coined the term Third Culture Kids (or TCKs) to describe this group, which comprises people from diverse backgrounds who share a feeling that home seems to be everywhere and nowhere. The term refers to a sense that many of these people have of belonging neither to the culture they lived in nor to the one of their country of origin, but to a less clearly defined ‘third culture’ that has elements of both while also having its own more international identity.

With increased ease of communication, transportation and trade, coming of age in just one culture has become less common. According to Ruth E Van Reken, co-author of Third Culture Kids: Growing up Among Worlds, these changes mean more people are cross-cultural, which she describes as having ‘meaningfully interacted with two or more cultural environments for a significant period of time during developmental years’. The book describes seven groups of people (see overleaf) whose cross-cultural childhoods affect their lives far beyond their developmental years.