Third Culture Kids
Third Culture Kids (TCKs) are military brats, business brats, Missionary Kids, boarding school students, children of immigrants, and other children who have grown up in a multitude of cultures to the point that they don't consider any one of the cultures to be their "home" culture.
The term was coined by Ruth Hill Useem in the early 1960s. According to her a Third Culture Kid learns to cope to a new culture rather than adjust to it. Thus they would become a part of a situation and yet remain apart from it in a certain sense. Their unique experiences among different cultures and various relationships at the formative stage of their development makes their orientation to the world different from others. This makes it difficult for them to have indepth communication with those who have not experienced similar conditions.
The term is also used to describe autistic kids and people with aspergers syndrome who grow up in their childhood in considerable isolation and without much social relationship, largely in a conceptual world.
While Third Culture Kids usually grow up to be fiercely independent and cosmopolitan, they also often have trouble "fitting in" with anyone who hasn't had the exact same combination of cultures that they have. As third culture kids grow up they become Adult Third Culture Kids (ATCKs). Some of them come to terms with the tremendous culture shock and loss that they have experienced. They gain a broader understanding of the world through their varied experiences, while others spend most of their adult life trying to come to terms with those same issues.
