What is a Cross Cultural Kid (CCK)?

A Cross Cultural Kid (or CCK) is anyone who has meaningful interaction with more than one culture before age 18. Third Culture Kids (TCKs) are one sub-category of CCK, but there are many others! 

Anyone who grows up with more than one culture within their family, for example, is a CCK. This includes those with parents who come from different ethnic, cultural, or linguistic backgrounds. 

Anyone who crosses borders as a child is a CCK – this includes immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and those living in borderlander communities, where a traditional people group is spread across an international border (for example, the Kurdish people). 

Anyone who grows up as part of a minority culture within a majority culture is also a CCK. Often the word “minority” conjures up the idea of race, but minority cultures can be ethnic, religious, or linguistic. Deaf communities are an example of minority cultures with no ethnic or religious identity.

Another important group of CCKs are transnational, transracial, and international adoptees. A lot of damage is done when the cross-cultural nature of these adoptive relationships is ignored. 

The term “domestic TCK” is used for people who moved frequently during childhood without leaving their passport country. They are also CCKs! These young people frequently start again in new communities, but without the badge of acknowledgement that comes with an international move. 

Finally, another group of CCKs I work with a lot are Educational CCKs - people who grow up in their passport countries, but attending international schools (using a language/curriculum that is different to what is normal in the rest of the country). 

In the revised edition of the classic book Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds is a discussion of the wider umbrella of cross-cultural experiences, and this helpful diagram:

Ruth van Reken’s Cross-Cultural Kid (CCK) Model, from Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds (2017), p44

I use this diagram (with the gracious permission of its creator, Ruth van Reken) in almost every seminar I run. This concept is so important! It also explains a lot.

For example, a number of ATCKs wrote to me after reading Misunderstood (which includes an earlier version of this diagram) to say they finally understood why they were drawn to certain groups of people, as friends or through advocacy work – people such as immigrants, refugees, those of mixed ethnic or cultural heritage, and those of ethnic or religious minority groups living within a mainstream culture. Seeing this diagram and reading the brief discussion of the Cross Cultural Umbrella concept provided a light bulb moment for these ATCKs: what drew them to these people, as individuals or groups, was a (usually subconscious) sense of shared experience.

One ATCK who wrote to me works in refugee advocacy, and said she had always felt a deep sense of affinity for refugees, both those who became her friends as well as the group as a whole. She had always assumed it was compassion for those in a difficult situation, and found it inexplicable why others did not so readily empathise with their plight. As she read about the Cross Cultural Umbrella she finally understood. While she had never been a refugee, she did have a cross cultural childhood. She had experienced trying to learn a new way of living in a new country and language. She had experienced the conflict of feeling love and affinity for more than one place. There were many refugee experiences she did not share – but there were some she did. Her sense of affinity was deeply personal, drawing on her own childhood experiences.

Another ATCK talked about bonding with what seemed to be quite an eclectic group of friends at university – they were different ethnicities, studied different subjects, and came from different socio-economic backgrounds. After learning about the Cross Cultural Umbrella he recognised that every member of their group was a CCK. Suddenly their sense of affinity and mutual understanding made sense. They could relax with each other in way that was unusual in most of the environments in which they each found themselves during the week.

Several ATCKs have told me they feel more comfortable mixing with minority groups rather than within the mainstream cultures of the countries they live in. (ATCKs from various passport countries have made this same remark.) The Cross Cultural Umbrella explains this affinity as well – those who grow up in a minority culture are also CCKs.

The resonance between different CCK experiences also explains why many people who aren’t “technically” TCKs themselves find a lot of help and comfort in the pages of a book like Misunderstood. I’ve heard from a lot of multi-ethnic young people and other with dual citizenship who find TCK literature very helpful. I’ve also had many young people from immigrant families speak to me about how strongly they identified with much of the content in Misunderstood.

One of the biggest reasons I think it’s important to distinguish between TCKs and CCKs, beyond inclusion and building connections, is it helps us to see and understand the role of intersectionality in the CCK experience. So many of the CCKs I have worked with and interviewed were CCKs in several ways. They were TCKs who were also transracially adopted. They were from immigrant families who then moved abroad and added the TCK experience. They are bi-cultural, growing up in two countries but have citizenship in each. They are multi-ethnic, with one minority parent. They grew as an ethnic minority, and now live overseas by choice as an expatriate adult in a country where they are part of the ethnic majority. Simply talking about a general TCK or general CCK experience will not accurately represent the complexity of these cross-cultural experiences. 

So here’s to more nuanced conversations, more representative research, and more diverse stories!

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Want to know more? I run a workshop on Cross Cultural Foundations and you can book a private session anytime. I also have a free session coming up at the end of November!

A version of this post was originally published on misunderstood-book.com