Comparative Education Bulletin - Faculty of Education - The ...

does ‘home’ mean to these participants and how do they describe,
understand and experience concepts of identity, culture and belonging?
Thus the research problem adopted for this phenomenology, ‘Does
Third Culture Theory suffer from the Fallacy of Subjective Personal
Validation?’ aimed to extract whether or not the educational, cultural,
behavioural and social traits attributed to the phenomenon of ‘Third
Culture’ experience, are uniquely applicable to TCKs.
The participants in this dual-site phenomenological study constituted:
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at the first site, five TCKs, aged between 13 and 16, currently
living in Hong Kong, but not of Chinese ethnic descent; and
at the second site, five non-TCKs aged between 13 and 16,
currently living in Sydney, Australia,who have never lived
aboard for any duration of time.
All ten participants shared similar socio-economic backgrounds
and attended private high schools. They all came from families where
the parents are married, and at least one parent (generally the father)
was gainfully employed. All participants had at least one sibling but
no more than three siblings. All participants were willing to share their
thoughts about the experiences of growing up; cultural identity and
belonging, and could articulate their experiences clearly, both orally
and in writing (McMillan, 2004, p.272; Van der Mescht 2004, p.6). The
five participants from Hong Kong were selected because they were
living the TCK experience under investigation. In contrast, the five
participants from Sydney, Australia were selected because they have
not ever lived the TCK experience under investigation.
The data collection mainstay utilised was the use of in-depth,
personal, loosely structured interviews (Van Der Mescht, 2004, p.5),
all recorded for analysis. On one hand, some structure had been
incorporated during the interviews, through initiation of questions. On
the other hand, I have attempted, wherever possible, to demonstrate
skill in listening to the participants, prompting when appropriate and
encouraging participants to reflect, expand and elaborate on their
remembrance of the experiences at hand (McMillan, 2004, pp.273-274;
Van der Mescht, 2004, pp.5-9). The participants were also asked to
complete a very brief questionnaire and to write a short reflective
journal of approximately five hundred words on the experiences
described and discussed during the interview sessions. This was done
with the aim of assuring greater credibility.
In this phenomenology, the focus was on shared meaning and
participant consciousness of experiences (McMillan, 2004, pp.273-274;
Van der Mescht, 2004, pp.5-9). Common themes, concepts and
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