Marketing Musings: Celebrating Third Culture Kids (and What We Can Learn From Them)

Working in international schools and learning organisations, I heard about the concept of third culture kids quite a while ago. Known simply as TCKs, these individuals spend their formative years growing up in a country and in cultures outside their parents’ home cultures. Coined by the American sociologist Ruth Useem in the 1950s, the term refers to children who are shaped by the multicultural and peripatetic spheres of their parents. TCKs dominate the student roll of international schools and as part to my work international and education marketing, I have developed a deep appreciation (and healthy fascination) for this group.?

Sociologist Ted Ward has suggested that TCKs are “the prototype citizens of the future”?yet it's not for their label (or their size – representing a nation unto themselves) but for what they embody that fascinates me.

In a recent article for Ad Week,?Anas Ghazi, talks about TCKs as the “secret competitive advantage” of organisations and he beautifully highlights how, because of their experiences, many TCKs naturally foster:?

• global impact with?connection?that transcends location;
• community?built on belief; and?
• understanding?that promotes peace.?

Concepts like connection and community, skills like bilingualism (85% of TCKs speak at least two languages) and proven abilities to adapt quickly to different work, study and country cultures and scenarios are fundamental in today’s organisations. I often tell my children that bilingualism is a superpower and TCKs may very well represent a super league!?

My father is a TCK – he was born of British parents residing in Pakistan before Partition and later grew up in India before immigrating to Canada. Ask him where he's from and you get a complex answer.

My children are also TCKs which makes for exciting conversations around events such as the Olympics or the World Cup. Just yesterday my youngest son simply stated: “I am orange” when asked at nursery which team was "his". He was not choosing sides, or the colour of a team jersey, he was choosing a colour he liked and embodying his own space.

Third culture kids are likely to make their first international move before the age of 5 and on average they live in 4 different cities growing up.?44% of TCKs earn an advanced degree by the age of 22.??

But that’s the starting place and not the journey. People are complex and complexity is beautiful. The reason we should celebrate and learn from third cultures is because, by their very nature, they don’t fit into boxes, they define their own interstitial space. As a Marketer, I am fascinated by this and by how much I could learn from them and with them.?

French composer Claude Debussy said, “Music is the space between the notes.” Third cultures are this third space and just like in music, that space reminds us that beauty needs a certain amount of openness and freedom to be appreciated. In an article I wrote for the ISA (Independent School Association) Journal on International Mindedness, I referred to Paul Poore’s work around educating the human spirit and what it means to be international. Being international is about inhabiting that interstitial space like the TCKs do; in Poore’s words “the spaces between the bars and the silence between the notes.” Music to my ears!

As a Marketer and a Director (and a Writer looking for inspiration), I know what a privilege it is to form part of an international community. Diversity makes us stronger. TCK’s truly represent not just the "tick boxes" of being international but something much more. Marketing is not just data, it’s insights, it’s making connections and building tribes (hat tip: Seth Godin) and communities.??Who better to inspire us than Third Culture Kids??

*****

Esther Clark?is author and outstanding contributor to Forbes and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Follow @ClarkEsther