The Convenient Label of ‘Third Culture Kids’: an exploration into the impact of an international school upbringing on the development of cultural identity, belonging, and place

The rise in globalisation has promoted and necessitated the need for the world to become more interdependent through economic, social, cultural, technological, and institutional processes. As this occurs, the number of families and their children are also increasing, with many enrolling into international schools abroad. In literature, children who have this international school upbringing have often fallen under the umbrella term of a ‘Third Culture Kid’ (TCK). As understandings of the intricacies of this unique international community deepen, the TCK label has undergone definitional changes for the label to be more comprehensive to reflect the expanding and diversifying population. The aim of this study was to examine the conceptual underpinnings of the TCK label and investigate the impact of an international school upbringing on identity, sense of belonging, and place. To achieve this, I conducted a qualitative study aligned with a constructivist/interpretivist approach that employed a hermeneutic phenomenological method. I carried out 11 in-depth interviews with participants remotely via videotelephone programmes as this research was occurring during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. First, the findings suggest that there were perceptible ideological inconsistencies between the international school curriculum and their proclaimed ideology of international mindedness. Second, participants’ experiences were conditional to their perceived ‘internationalness’, and this was inherently tied to their race. Participants who were Caucasian were regarded as more international as it was often tied to their English-speaking ability and adhered more to the ‘Traditional TCK’ framework. Third, while international schools were reliant on visible diversity to uphold images of ‘internationalness’, the same observable diversities (i.e., variations in English) were invalidated and paradoxically considered ‘un-international’. Fourth, the unequal treatment towards international school kids were shown to have long-lasting implications on self-perceptions of identity, belonging, and place. These findings coalesce to indicate that there is a lack of awareness and institutional guidance to support international school students. Without intervention, the structural and racial inequalities within international schools may reverberate into wider society.