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Portable Roots: Transplanting the Bicultural Child

Bicultural individuals often articulate the themes of rootlessness, identity formation, cultural dissolution, and “home”, and reframe them into theological questions. Bicultural individuals who have spent their formative childhood years living in, and interacting with, two or more cultures can be found in immigrant, refugee, transnational, missionary, borderland, and hybrid communities.

This book challenges the traditional understanding of human development. In particular, Portable Roots: Transplanting the Bicultural Child underscores the contextual and religious nature of development. By focusing on identity formation in children and adolescents who have grown up in more than one culture, the parameters of stage theorists such as Erik Erikson are expanded.

Three samples of children of missionaries formed the initial research population. The children were raised in boarding schools, mission schools, and international schools – settings which have been likened to a hybrid or third culture or interstitial space. These original three samples first articulated a phenomenon of “rootlessness” that sent the author on an investigative journey spanning three decades. After interviewing many persons with portable roots, the study’s last sampling in Princeton, New Jersey, in 2012, articulated what was needed for the end of this quest: how transplanted roots thrive in terra firma.


Dr Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner is Professor of Pastoral Care at Perkins School of Theology (Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas); an ordained Presbyterian minister (PCUSA); a Fellow in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors; a member of the International Academy of Practical Theology; a Henry Luce III Fellow; former missionary schoolteacher; and past Chair of the Society for Pastoral Theology. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Basel, Switzerland. Her dissertation in Basel and her experience as a schoolteacher in a missionary Internat in the Black Forest of Germany gave her a foundation for this book and previous articles. She has edited four volumes, written five monographs, and published numerous articles. Dr Stevenson-Moessner has trained in rape crisis centers, a child abuse council, an addictive disease unit, four domestic violence programs, a community mental health clinic and a three-year residency at Georgia Baptist Hospital in Atlanta. Most recently, she completed a 2012 residency at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, writing on the topic of the bicultural child.

"Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner's latest book has been in development for over 40 years, and it shows. Her well-researched text draws on experiences she had in Germany even before her doctoral work, and her passion for telling the stories of 'transplanted children' is evident on every page. Indeed, the care with which she handles their narratives demonstrates a deep interest in and empathy for the plight of what she calls the 'bicultural' child."

Barbara J. McClure Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University Journal of Pastoral Theology, published online 28.02.2017

"Through poignant cases and rich scholarship, Stevenson-Moessner identifies one more place where children have been rendered invisible – those who grow up suspended between cultures, uprooted by adult decisions about missionary service and then often ignored in post-colonial, psychological, and theological scholarship. A must-read for those who care about the immense developmental and cultural implications."

Dr Bonnie Miller-McLemore E. Rhodes and Leona Carpenter Professor of Religion, Psychology and Culture, The Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion, Vanderbilt University

"Without doubt, today’s biggest change in individual identity formation worldwide is the rapidly growing number of individuals raised in multi-cultural settings. Stevenson-Moessner’s pioneering study, based on solid research and full of brilliant insights, provides the key to understanding the impact of this trend for the respective individuals and for theory formation in (religious) education."

Dr Stephanie Klein Professorin Pastoraltheologie, Universitaet Luzern

"Today, when more children of refugees all over the world grow up in more than one culture, this book is invaluable indeed in many respects."

Professor Emeritus Riet Bons-Storm University of Groningen

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-4438-5697-5

ISBN13: 978-1-4438-5697-3

Release Date: 19th June 2014

Pages: 139

Price: £39.99

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