Intercultural Families

Families become intercultural in one of two ways: (1) internally (through intercultural marriage/partnership or adoption) or (2) because they move, as a family, from one culture to another. It is not uncommon for families to be complexly intercultural —a bicultural couple with a (biracial, bilingual) child may move multiple times to different cultures, each experience leading to intimate familiarity with other cultures and all the potential opportunity and challenge this involves. Internally intercultural families that are formed from intercultural intimate relationships and cross-cultural adoptions are described separately in this volume, so the focus here is on globally mobile families that move to a new cultural environment, either temporarily (as expatriates) or permanently (as immigrants). Topics include developmental differences in the experience of such families, systemic ...