All posts tagged: research

Research update: female minority expatriates

When Kendra Mirasol and Charisse Kosova of IOR Global Services noticed more minority women going abroad, they wondered if minority status made expat assignment easier. Since good expat research is hard to come by, they decided to conduct their own investigation. The focus: female minority women going abroad for business. A study can’t get much more specific than that, which meant preliminary research included only 25 respondents, 13 of whom went through extensive interviews. When they presented their findings at the Families in Global Transition conference in March, the numerical data was unsurprising:  “Is the overseas assignment a developmental part of your career plan?” 83 percent said yes. “Did any of the company’s preparation focus on female minority issues?” 89 percent said no. Instead, the most interesting results from their research came from the anecdotes collected through extended interviews. Here are some quotes from female minority expats that Kendra and Charisse presented: “People assumed I was Filipino and had married my husband because I was his maid. It fit their sense of order.” “Initially [the …

Faces at FIGT – Deniz: “Make TCKs known to French people too”

Deniz Gyger Gaspoz, 33, is a PhD researcher at the Institute of Psychology and Education at University of Neuchatel. She’s picked a pretty specific course of study: French-speaking, teen Third Culture Kids. During a brief chat at the Families in Global Transition (FIGT) conference, I picked her brain on what she had discovered so far. Deniz, a daughter of Swiss diplomats, speaks French fluently and has lived in Iran, France, Germany, Switzerland, Senegal and India. What do you say when someone asks you, “Where are you from?” If I’m here in Houston, I can say without a problem “Switzerland.” I’ve lived there for more than 8 years. But if Swiss people ask me where I am from, I will have difficulties to answer. I’ll say “Geneva” because I lived there and my family is there. Then sometimes I say Neuchatel [Switzerland] because I study in Neuchatel and I used to live there. And sometimes I say Biel [Switzerland] because I’m living there with my husband. Why does your research focus on French-speaking teenagers? I found …