An expatriate family is defined as a family with children, which has moved abroad because of a parent’s, an expatriate’s, global work. The concept of the expatriate used in this paper encompasses business expatriates, but also e.g. researchers and diplomats. Thus, expatriate families are associated with middle or upper middle class. Basically, these families face two global transitions: expatriation and repatriation. Emphasizing the child’s connection to the family, I utilize the concept of a child of an expatriate family. As the concept makes it explicit, the family is the major context for these children during transitions. Most studies on children of expatriate families have been carried out in the United States, where the concept of Third Culture Kids is used. Besides the United States, children of expatriate families have been broadly studied in Japan. In European research, few studies have embarked on focusing on these children.

In addition to the family, the school is an important context for these children. The school operates as an entry into the culture (Bruner 1996).  In this paper, my focus is on the school context. This paper aims to answer to the question whether children of Finnish expatriate families are defined as international or intercultural in the school context.

Concerning the school context, children of expatriate families have been linked to the international schools and international education (e.g. McLachlan 2007, Dolby & Rahman 2008). For American children of expatriate families, an international school is the major school context. For them, there is a continuum of the school system, and especially a continuum of the school language, English. The monolingual international school was set up to serve English-speaking expatriate communities (Murphy 2003). Murphy argues that the children most potentially disadvantaged in international schools are the non-native speakers of English. Thus, for a European non-English speaking child, an international school abroad may not be an ideal context. Moreover, it is not known whether European children of expatriate families enroll in an international or a local school while living abroad.

Linkages between children of expatriate families and intercultural education have been slight. In Finland, cultural diversity is seen narrowly as connecting only with immigrants. Therefore, multicultural education is only intended for immigrant students. (Holm & Londen 2010.) As a result, children of expatriate families are not in practice included in multicultural education. In Japan, the first motivating factor for multicultural education was not immigration. Multicultural education stressed support for the Japanese children living abroad and for the returnee children. (Fujikane 2003.) In the 1960s and 1970s, the children of Japanese expatriate families were seen as academically disadvantaged ‘educational refugees’ and implemented within remedial education. With the growth of internationalisation, the image of these children was shifted from negative to positive: ‘having an international outlook’. (Fry 2008.)

Bruner, J. 1996. The culture of education. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University. Dolby, N. & Rahman, A. 2008. Research in International Education. Review of Educational Research 78 (3), 676–726. Fry, R. 2008. Politics of education for Japanese returnee children. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 1–17. Fujikane, H. 2003. Approaches to global education in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. International Review of Education 49 (1–2), 133–152. Holm, G. & Londen, M. 2010. The discourse on multicultural education in Finland: education for whom? Intercultural Education 21 (2), 107–120. McLachlan, D. A. 2007. Global nomads in an international school: Families in transition. Journal of Research in International Education 6 (2), 233–249. Murphy, E. 2003. Monolingual international schools and the young non-English-speaking child. Journal of Research in International Education 2 (1), 25–45. Öry, F.G., Simons, M., Verhulst, F.C., Leenders, F.R.H. & Wolters, W.H.G. 1991. Children who cross cultures. Social Science & Medicine 32 (1), 29–34.