Encountering an Alien Culture

This paper applies a cultural perspective to the problem of introducing novices to a new technology: computing. We suggest a general model of initial socialization composed of reality shock, confusion, and attempts at control. Cultural values and ideas contribute to the settings in which this socialization takes place, and one result of this socialization process consists of either cultural recruits or cultural dropouts. In a two-part study exploring the nature of novice encounters with computing in one university setting, reality shock and confusion were quite high and attempts at control were often unsuccessful. In this study when novices encountered computing, they learned more than skills: they learned cultural lessons. Novices acquired perceptions of the social organization of computing; they learned “we-they” distinctions and language; they learned values. This cultural learning, we think, will magnify differential outcomes of organizational socialization to computing.

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