Tck Life: The Significance of It

Specific Purpose: To give the audience a word that they can relate to that describes them sufficiently. Introduce the audience to a term that may be useful to them in the future. Introduce the history, definition and the characteristics of a Third Culture Kid.

Opening: As the FLA, we all have something in common, we often have trouble describing ourselves or even where we consider "home." There's never a concise answer that suffices or truly explains our background.

Relating to Audience: We've all lived in different countries, attended international schools and incorporated another culture into our lives in some way. We all understand what it means to be a "foreigner" both in other countries and our own.

Thesis: As students of the FLA, we can't deny ourselves and our identity and conform to one culture because it's appropriate. Being a Third Culture Kid is becoming more and more common, being in the FLA, this can be observed.

Body: Definition of Third Culture Kid: expatriate kids who have spend a substantial amount of time outside their culture, the integration of one's birth culture (first culture) and the foreign culture (second culture) to form a third culture.

Who coined the term? Ruth Hill Useem in the 1950's- early1960's whilst in India with her children, later revised by David Pollock who sets "requirements" or "standards" on being a Third Culture Kid.

Five Categories of Third Culture Kids:

Military- "military brats;" tend to be exposed the least to the local culture, parents tend to have the lowest level of education out of the five categories, spend an average of seven years abroad.

Business- great deal of time in foreign countries (+10 years), high interaction with others from other countries/cultures as well as their own passport country, "business" is usually oil.

Government/non-military government- "foreign service brat;" usually stay for extended periods of time; involvement of with locals and such is dependent on the parent, diplomatic corps related.

Religious/missionary- most time overseas, have the most interaction with the local population and least interaction with those of their passport country. Most likely to integrate themselves into local culture, has one parent with an advanced degree.

Other- involved in NGO, hospital work, international schools, etc. Least time in a foreign country, involvement with the local people varies; TCK parent 89% chance of holding an advanced degree.

Stereotypes/characteristics of Third Culture Kids: TCK's are said to be more tolerant, independent and cosmopolitan yet they struggle with their identity. TCK's are four times as likely as non-TCK's to earn a bachelor's degree, 40% earn an advanced degree,

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