The Foreign Service Journal, April 2009

They may also not expect changes in themselves after living and working overseas. Further, families and friends generally do not expect the travelers to have changed, and may show little in- terest in the overseas experiences of those returning. Returnees are thus set up for a clash between expectations — their own and others’ — and expe- rience. Repatriation has come to be under- stood as the return of “a stranger to a strange land.” The result can be vary- ing degrees of feeling lost or not fitting in, short- or long-term loneliness, iso- lation and even depression. This can affect not only the emotional well- being of the individual, but also the family. According to social work’s fam- ily systems thinking, which views the family as a dynamic interacting unit, what affects one member affects the other members as well. As such, re- entry symptoms in the spouse can af- fect everyone in the family unit and their interactions at home, as well as at school and in the workplace. I learned about this issue the hard way. My first re-entry, with a 3-year- old child and another on the way, was the most difficult. In fact, a stress test taken at the time put me, the test ad- ministrator said, “way over the top.” The second return was not as hard for me personally, but my middle-school sons were “way over the top” trying to fit in. The third time, with children in late high school and early college, was the easiest for the entire family. Experience-Based Research These experiences motivated my choice of re-entry as a thesis topic while I was a student at the Smith Col- lege School for Social Work. I wanted a better understanding of the condi- tions and the factors that influence the readjustment of spouses. My proposal to the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide to conduct a study among its member- ship was approved by the board of di- rectors. (I did not seek a sample within the State Department due to the lengthy and uncertain approval process involved.) The 10-page questionnaire I sent to 580 active AAFSWmembers, including all Foreign Service spouses who were not current U.S. govern- ment employees, produced a 158-per- son sample, more than adequate for meaningful statistical analysis of the re- sults. I chose four areas of exploration: demographics, characteristics of the spouses’ last overseas assignments and last re-entries, and any changes in their cultural (American) identity after liv- ing overseas. My aim was to identify factors in each of these areas associated with spousal re-entry adjustments so as to be able to provide preventive infor- mation useful to spouses and those working with them overseas and at home. The data analysis had two parts. The first was descriptive in nature, pro- viding demographic, overseas and re- entry information about the sample. The second part, measured by the Homecomer Culture Shock Scale de- signed in 1988 by Jeffrey Fray of the University of Tennessee, looked for re- lationships between factors and each spouse’s re-entry adjustment. Both parts could provide valuable informa- tion for the continuing development of programs to address the needs of FS spouses. A third set of results consisted of the spouses’ own short-answer re- flections on their last experience. Study Results The descriptive results provide an interesting overview of a group of For- eign Service spouses who are not nor- mally tracked by the State Department due to privacy concerns. Though cer- tainly older, on average, than the spouses of active-duty FSOs, the sam- ple accurately reflected the range of ex- perience of accompanying spouses. Seventeen percent were foreign-born and another 9 percent were U.S. citi- zens raised internationally. Eighty-six percent had a college education or higher; of these, nearly 44 percent had postgraduate degrees. As a group, they were married to an FSO for an average of 26 years and had 2.32 children per spouse, nearly the same as the U.S. national average. At the time of the study, 40 percent were working full-time, 30 percent were vol- unteering, 20 percent were working part-time and volunteering, and 10 percent were retired. Most spouses appeared content with their last over- seas assignment and reported that their participation in activities had been high (though their interaction with embassy personnel and formation of friendships within the U.S. embassy community were both low). More than half were employed at least part-time at their last assignment; of those, more than three-quarters were completely or mostly satisfied with their work. Eighty percent had volunteered at their last overseas post and reported high satisfaction with that work — an indication that the Family Liaison Office initiative to extend em- ployment and volunteer opportunities for spouses overseas is working. At the time of their last re-entry, most spouses (80 percent) had had previous returns, while for 20 percent it was their first experience. More than 50 percent had been back for more than 10 years, while 25 percent had been back for three years or less. One- half had young children and adoles- cents at the time of re-entry, and the Repatriation has come to be understood as the return of “a stranger to a strange land.” 34 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 9

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