This study of intercultural contact and computer-mediated communication explores the extent to which American-schooled and foreign-schooled graduate students held similar views about online, threaded discussions (i.e., asynchronous computer conferencing assignments). Eight comparative pairs of women were selected from six, Fall 2003, graduate level, American university courses in business management or education. Participants were selected in relation to two contact experiences with schooling: (1) prior American or foreign K--12 schooling and (2) the presence or lack of prior experience with threaded discussions. During two hour-long interviews, participants described their perspectives on the use of weekly threaded discussions in conjunction with face-to-face class meetings. Using qualitative and case research methodologies, the eight pairs' threaded discussion views were compared for patterns of convergence and divergence.;Among first-time threaded discussion participants, the cultural distance of participants' formative years from the Anglo-American society did not provide a consistent explanation for the patterns found among each pair's threaded discussion views. Surprisingly, the first-time, American-schooled participants were more likely to experience confusion, frustration, and resistance to threaded discussions (i.e., culture shock) than the first-time, foreign-schooled participants who were immigrants since the foreign-schooled immigrants' dual culture frame of reference helped them to identify and then adapt to the threaded discussion culture of learning more quickly. In contrast, those first-time participants who brought a single culture frame of reference (i.e., both the American-schooled participants and one foreign-schooled, temporary resident of the United States of America) had a more difficult time adapting because they assumed that threaded discussions would be a continuation of their familiar cultures of learning.;After American-schooled and foreign-schooled participants had gained experience with threaded discussions, their threaded discussion views contained an overall pattern of convergence. Yet the American-schooled and foreign-schooled participants had approached the process of acculturation to threaded discussions differently. The American-schooled participants remained less aware of the cultural influences on their communication, rhetorical, and participation styles; the foreign-schooled participants had used their awareness of their cultural and linguistic differences to their advantage during the initial adjust phases of adjustment, but then faced a number of ongoing challenges because of these linguistic and cultural differences.
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