See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/238331685

Internalization, Participation, and Ethnocentrism

Article in Human Development · September 1998

DOI: 10.1159/000022597

CITATIONS READS

3 676

1 author:

Maria Grazia Carelli

Umeå University
104 PUBLICATIONS 1,319 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Maria Grazia Carelli on 03 March 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Commentary

Human Development 1998;41:355–359

Internalization, Participation, and

Ethnocentrism
Maria Grazia Carelli
Umea University, Umea, Sweden

Key Words
Dualism W Ethnocentrism W Internalization W Participation model W Vygotsky

Matusov’s article focuses on two general models for the analysis of learning and
development, namely on Vygotsky’s internalization model and the participation model.
Matusov’s main critique of Vygotsky’s concept of internalization is that the mastery of
solo activity is considered as the marker of individual maturity, and the crux of ontolog-
ical development and adulthood. According to Matusov, the concept of internalization
leads to a chain of mutually related dualisms between the natural (Vygotsky’s synonym
of ‘biological’) and the cultural, between the organism and the environment, and
between the social and the individual. Matusov argues that these dual abstractions are
inseparable by definition and any attempt to bridge the dualistic gap between social-
individual, external-internal within the internalization model is problematic. Further-
more, and interestingly, because of the emphasis on people’s independent solo activity,
Vygotsky’s concept of internalization is seen as the model of learning alienated activities
(i.e., decontextualized), in which the individual uses sociocultural practices without
actually engaging in them. By contrast, in the participation model, solo activities are not
privileged and emphasized, but individual development is considered as a process of
transformation of individual participation in sociocultural activity. The author argues
that the participation model overcomes inherent dualism in Vygotsky’s internalization
model.
Matusov’s article contains a wealth of valuable insights about models of learning
and development. One of the most positive aspects of Matusov’s article is that it com-
bines in original and fruitful way three different perspectives: Vygotsky’s notion of
internalization, the emerging participation model, and Marx’s ideas concerning joint
and solo activities as aspects of sociocultural practices. Another notable feature of the
article is that Matusov is able to reveal and emphasize the existing ‘blind spots’ in the
contemporary use of Vygotsky’s ideas, including Matusov’s emphasis on questions of
the individual developing person, which Vygotsky persistently overlooked [van der
Veer and Valsiner, 1994].

© 1996 S. Karger AG, Basel Maria Grazia Carelli

ABC 0018–716X/98/0416–0355$15.00/0 Department of Psychology
Fax + 41 61 306 12 34 Umea University
E-Mail karger@karger.ch Accessible online at: S–901 87 Umea (Sweden)
www.karger.com http://BioMedNet.com/karger E-Mail grazia.carelli@psy.umu.se
 In this commentary, I will focus on three different issues highlighted by Matusov’s
paper. Namely, (a) Vygotsky’s ethnocentrism, (b) Matusov’s view of Vygotsky’s concept
of internalization, and (c) dualism in relation to the basic assumptions of the participa-
tion model.
Concerning the first issue, Vygotsky’s ethnocentrism is one of the most critical and
interesting aspects concerning the relevance of his writings for contemporary develop-
mental psychology. From that perspective, Matusov’s arguments about Vygotsky’s eth-
nocentrism are attuned to that important issue, but are left underdeveloped in the arti-
cle. Matusov’s argument that the internalization model is ethnocentric because ‘it privi-
leges mastery of solo activity as the crux of human development’ does not justify the use
of such a strong statement. Matusov needs to clarify and articulate better in which sense
the internalization model per se is ethnocentric.
In his ethnocentric perspective, or Eurocentrism, Vygotsky regarded some cultures
as inferior to others [see Rogoff, 1990; Tulviste, 1991; Wertsch and Tulviste, 1992].
Vygotsky’s concept of culture is biased in that it emphasizes decontextualized thinking
and regards other ways of thinking as less developed [see van de Veer, 1996]. Vygotsky
tended to interpret his empirical observations on the basis of his evolutionistic concep-
tualization of culture. According to this view, different cultures can be ordered in a
developmental hierarchy with the European type of culture at the top. Vygotsky inter-
preted his studies in terms of whether participants were from primitive or advanced
societies, whether they used scientific or everyday concepts, and whether they counted
on abstract or situational thinking. For instance, in a paper on the education of national
minorities, Vygotsky [1929] argued that the level of culture of national minorities was
‘low’ and that they needed a ‘forced cultural development’ in order to ‘take a grandiose
leap on the ladder of their cultural development and to reach the level of the unified
socialist culture’. Leontiev [1981], who worked closely with Vygotsky, used the term
‘primitive’ in a nonhierarchical way, simply as a way to describe a society that bases its
activity on a less technological division of labor. By contrast, Vygotsky’s idea of ‘primi-
tive’ appears in his conceptualization of children’s ‘verbal realism’. In his account,
‘childish’ is equated with ‘primitive’ and ‘irrational’ and the child is beset by the same
‘magical’ and ‘illogical’ thinking as primitive and mentally impaired people:

Since children of a certain age tend to think in pseudo concepts, and words designate to them
complexes of concrete objects, their thinking must result in bonds unacceptable to adult logic ... Prim-
itive peoples (also) think in complexes, and consequently the word in their languages does not function
as the carrier of a concept but as a ‘family name’ for groups of concrete objects belonging together, not
logically, but factually ... Storch has shown that the same kind of thinking is characteristic of schizo-
phrenics, who regress from conceptual thought to a more primitive level ... Schizophrenics ... abandon
concepts for the more primitive form of thinking in images and symbols. The use of concrete images
instead of abstract concepts is one of the most distinctive traits of primitive thought. Thus the child,
primitive man, and the insane ... all manifest participation, a symptom of primitive complex thinking
and of the function of words as family names. [Vygotsky, 1962, pp 128–130]

In spite of his Eurocentric view of culture, there are indications that Vygotsky was
subsequently moving away from that form of ethnocentrism [Wertsch and Tulviste,
1992]. In Thinking and Speech Vygotsky [1987] shifted to approach concept develop-
ment from the perspective of how it emerges in particular spheres of socioculturally
situated activities, suggesting that particular forms of mental functioning are associated
with institutionally situated activities. Thus Vygotsky’s conceptualization moved

356 Human Development Carelli

1998;41:355–359
towards recognizing that an account of the social origins of intramental functioning
cannot stop at the intermental plane. Because individuals and groups are exposed to a
variety of activities and settings, we can expect them to master a heterogeneous set of
mediational means and hence a heterogeneous set of mental processes. As Wertsch and
Tulviste [1996] stated, reformulating mental functioning in terms of heterogeneity and
cultural tool kits helps us to avoid the assumption that various individuals or groups can
generally be ranked as inferior or superior to others.
I also share Nicolopoulou and Weintraub’s [1996] point of view that it is too easy
for present-day readers to simply conclude that Vygotsky and his collaborators drew this
kind of invidious contrast between ‘western’ and ‘non-western’ cultures: ‘In itself, this is
correct, but after all, they also saw themselves as involved in the effort to construct a
higher socialist civilization that would build upon, but also supersede, existing western
culture’ [Nicolopoulou and Weintraub, 1996, p. 277]. Furthermore, in favor of a non-
ethnocentric view, Meacham [1996] considers Vygotsky’s theory as a help in the con-
struction of possibilities for the emancipation from racism: ‘The strength of Vygotsky’s
theory lies in its analysis of the process by which society and culture are transmitted
from one generation to the next ... In this respect, Vygotsky’s theory, with its concern for
the reproduction of the society and culture within children, seems a promising founda-
tion on which to build’ [p. 306].
Paradoxically, for many western scholars who have drawn on the ideas of Vygotsky
(including Matusov), part of what makes his perspective attractive is precisely what
seems to be its affinity with progressive concerns and agendas. Many of Vygotsky’s
concepts (e.g., the zone of proximal development, the importance of sociocultural activ-
ity) have subsequently been elaborated and embedded in modern cultural psychology
[see, e.g., Cole, 1985; Rogoff, 1990]. In fact, one of the main goals of current cultural
psychology is to avoid any sort of ethnocentrism [cf. Berry et al., 1992].
The second issue that needs to be discussed concerns Matusov’s view of Vygotsky’s
concept of internalization. Matusov’s criticism seems to emphasize a unilateral ‘out-
side-in’ vision of the internalization process. Actually, Vygotsky proposed a complex
view of the internalization process, which far from being a unilateral movement of
transfer from outside to inside, allows us to understand the construction of an internal,
individual plane of functioning that is intimately connected to the external, social func-
tioning. This latter concept is evident in Vygotsky’s description of internalization of
mnemonic activities (first based on external signs and only later on internal signs such
as words or images):

The fourth stage we call ‘ingrowth’ stage. The external operation turns inward and undergoes a
profound change in the process. The child begins to count in its head, to use ‘logical memory’, that is,
to operate with inherent relationships and inner signs. In speech development this is the final stage of
inner, soundless speech. There remains a constant interaction between outer and inner operations, one
form effortlessly and frequently changing into the other and back again. Inner speech may become
very close in form to external speech or even become exactly like it when it serves as a preparation for
external speech – for instance, in thinking over a lecture to be given. There is no sharp division
between inner and external behavior, and each influences the other. [Vygotsky, 1962, p. 47, emphasis
added]

It is rather clear from this passage that Vygotsky maintained that internal opera-
tions, once they are internalized, constantly interact with external operations, and the
development of the intrapsychological plane seems, in turn, to modify the interpsycho-

Internalization, Participation, and Ethnocentrism Human Development 357

1998;41:355–359
logical activity [cf. Martı́, 1996]. Even if Vygotsky does not specify the nature of these
interactions, we are far from a unilateral vision going from the ‘outside-in’.
The third issue that I would like to put into the spotlight of critical reflection deals
with the conceptual basis of the participation model. Namely, that the model is based on
the assumptions of (a) denying the duality between inside and outside (either between
the individual and society, or between the individual and the context) and (b) refusing
the existence of the internalization-externalization processes on the basis that all activi-
ties are irremediably social and contextual, and that boundaries between people are
diffuse [see Lave, 1988; Rogoff, 1990]. If it is true that the internal-external aspects
always coexist in the individual’s actions, we still have to explain how this tension
between the individual and the social is generated, otherwise we fall into a social reduc-
tionism where the opposites are amalgamated [cf. Martı́, 1996]. Thus, the risk with the
participation model is to go totally to the other side, so that the individual’s dynamics
and the mechanisms responsible for the construction of knowledge are not taken into
account. Instead, the developmental process of learning is thought as totally subordi-
nated to interpsychological mechanisms and yet unconstructive from the individual’s
point of view. Vygotsky was aware that the only way to guard against reductionism
(either of the individual to the social or of the social to the individual) was to use a unit
of analysis that encapsulates both (e.g., word meaning). Theoretically, there is no differ-
ence between sociological and individual-psychological reductionistic solutions because
in both cases the problem is solved by eliminating the duality between the two parts of
the relationship. As Lawrence and Valsiner [1993, p. 151] pointed out: ‘If the basic
duality between person and society is not denied, the issue of internalization retains its
central role in any explanation of psychological development.’
In general terms, claims about internalization presuppose, and hence reinforce, dual-
ism between the external and the internal [Wertsch, 1993]. The concept of internalization
is not useful and should be replaced by terms like ‘mastery’ [Wertsch, 1993], ‘appropria-
tion’ [Rogoff, 1990], or ‘co-construction’ [Lawrence and Valsiner, 1993; Valsiner, 1994].
According to these authors, the reason for such a substitution lies in the dualism between
external and internal that the term ‘internalization’ seems to introduce.
One way of handling this impasse between dualism vs. internalization has been
presented in the framework of Harré [1993]. According to Harré, the Cartesian psycho-
logical dimensions of subjective-objective, inner-outer should be replaced by the con-
trast between public-private and individual-collective. Psychological structures are not
exclusively individual or private, but can be displayed both privately and publicly and
grounded both collectively and individually. As does Vygotsky, Harré argues that psy-
chological structures originate and are formed and transmitted in the social sphere of
language, practical activity, and social interaction. Furthermore, these structures are
displayed publicly and they are grounded in collective agreement [see also Erneling,
1993]. Thus, according to this notion, cognitive activities are primarily public and col-
lective, but they become individual activities through developmental processes of the
kind Vygotsky [1962] referred to as ‘appropriation’. What is, then, the concrete conse-
quence of this kind of approach, and how can the impasse between dualism vs. internal-
ization be overcome? According to this approach, for example, the personal identity of a
young child is not a private and subjective awareness of the child as a separate, unique
individual, but a ‘public fact’ displayed explicitly by the child’s physical separateness
and grounded collectively in other people’s treatment of the child. This public concept
of personal identity is learned by the child as he or she interacts with other individuals

358 Human Development Carelli

1998;41:355–359
 in different language games, and the public concept becomes gradually internalized as it
regulates the child’s own actions.
In summary, all the issues about dualism, social or individual reductionism, and
internalization processes are theoretically complex because they intersect basic philo-
sophical issues (of psychological dimensions) of subjective-objective and of the individ-
ual set up against the world. Such relations can be conceptualized in many ways, but
Harré’s [1993] approach may offer one opportunity to clarify existing inconsistencies.
Especially when considering Vygotsky’s concept of internalization, there is a tendency
to question either social or individual reductionism, to wonder about the need of dual-
ism or process of internalization – a tendency that can become theoretically sterile.
In conclusion, Matusov’s article is a thought-provoking analysis that opens up a
number of important issues, both interpretative and theoretical, and that sets the stage
for a new understanding of models of development.

References
Berry, J.W., Poortinga, Y.H., Segall, M.H., & Dasen, P.R. (1992). Cross-cultural psychology: Research and applica-
tions. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Cole, M. (1985). The zone of proximal development: Where culture and cognition create each other. In J.V. Wertsch
(Ed.), Culture, communication and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives (pp. 146–161). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Erneling, C. (1993). Understanding language acquisition: The framework of learning. New York, NY: Stage University
of New York Press.
Harré, R. (1993). Personal being: A theory of individual psychology (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Lawrence, J.A., & Valsiner, J. (1993). Conceptual roots of internalization: From transmission to transformation.
Human Development, 36, 3. 150–167.
Leontiev, A.N. (1981). Problems in the development of the mind. Moscow: Progress.
Martı́, E. (1996). Mechanisms of internalisation and externalisation of knowledge in Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories.
In A. Tryphon & J. Vonèche (Eds.), Piaget-Vygotsky: The social genesis of thought (pp. 57–83). Hove: Psycholo-
gy Press.
Meacham, J.A. (1996). Mind, society, and racism. Human Development, 39, 6, 301–306.
Nicolopoulou, A., & Weintraub, J. (1996). On liberty, cultural relativism and development: A commentary on van der
Veer’s ‘The concept of culture in Vygotsky’s thinking’. Culture & Psychology, 2, 273–283.
Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context. New York, NY: Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
Tulviste, P. (1991). Cultural-historical development of verbal thinking: A psychological study. Commack, NY: Nova
Science Publishers.
Valsiner, J. (1994). Co-constructivism: What is (and is not) in a name? In P. van Geert & L. Mos (Eds.), Annals of
Theoretical Psychology (Vol. 10). New York, NY: Plenum Press.
van der Veer, R. (1996). The concept of culture in Vygotsky’s thinking. Culture & Psychology, 2, 247–263.
van der Veer, R., & Valsiner, J. (1994). The Vygotsky Reader. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1929). On the question of the scientific research plan for the pedagogy of the national minorities.
Pedologija, 3, 367–377.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Original work published 1934)
Vygotsky, L.S. (1987). Thinking and speech (N. Minick, Ed. and Trans.). New York, NY: Plenum.
Wertsch, J.V. (1993). Commentary. Human Development, 36, 168–171.
Wertsch, J.V., & Tulviste, P. (1992). L.S. Vygotsky and contemporary developmental psychology. Developmental
Psychology, 28, 4, 548–557.
Wertsch, J.V., & Tulviste, P. (1996). L.S. Vygotsky and contemporary developmental psychology. In H. Daniels (Ed.),
An introduction to Vygotsky (pp. 53–74). London: Routledge.

Internalization, Participation, and Ethnocentrism Human Development 359

1998;41:355–359

View publication stats