Ricardo Ottoni (Nov 11) and Paul Dillon (Nov 11) seem to agree that the
key distinction between internalization and appropriation lies in the
degree of consciousness or agency with which the subject takes on part of
what is made available to her/him as a legitimate peripheral participant
in culturally structured activities. Diane Hodges (Nov 12) and Judy
Diamondstone (Nov 13) evidently disagree, and so do I. It seems clear that
a good deal of what most of us think, at first blush, is "common sense",
or something that we discovered for ourselves, was in point of fact picked
up with little or no awareness on our part while participating in
activities that were structured in highly specific ways by our culture of
primary socialization, including rationalizations of arbitrary food taboos
and gender roles.
Agency is acknowledged by the term appropriation in the sense that what is
taken on is often transformed to suit our purposes. But it has no
particular implications with respect to deliberateness, nor does
internalization imply that information was deliberately instilled. For me
the critical issues are that
(a) the cultural content (information, technology, etc) is not unchanged
as it passes down across generations - hence the need for those wonderful
histories of meaning in Raymond Williams' Keywords, and
(b) cultural insiders claim an authority to interpret the meaning of
particular acts, statements, etc within the framework of their culture
that is grounded in their status as members of the cultural community -
hence Eugene Matusov's anxiety (Nov 11:"please, do not treat my comments
as privileged just because Russian is my native language, I read Vygotsky
in Russian, or I studied psychology in Russia from Davydov and his
students. My opinion on the matter should be taken as one among others"),
and my hesitation to allow him to deny his authority in certain respects
(of which more in my next message).
Nate Schmoltze (12 Nov) wrote, in part: "My understanding of appropriation
comes from several sources. First, in the "construction zone" by Mike and
company intersubjectivity comes into play is that not only is the teacher
or student transforming, but being simutanously transformed. What I would
translate as a dialectical process that avoids "internalization" on one
end and "construction" on the other.
The other notion of appropriation is from Wertsch in which he gives the
example of a Jewish student internalizing the pledge of allegience, but
not appropriating it. Appropriation in this lite would include a level of
identity formation (which can be good or bad).
What occurs is much more than the child internalizing carrot, so s/he can
select it on a multiple choice test, but its interrelationship with
cultural activity. "
I agree with the point cited here from Newman, Griffin & Cole. However, in
the example cited from Jim Wertsch (I don't recognize it, and would be
grateful for an exact citation), it seems to me that there is a danger of
assuming that one must agree with an idea in order to appropriate it. My
own view is that what gets appropriated over the developmental course of
enculturation is a dimension or element of a system of meanings. Thus a
cultural insider can explain to us with authority what another
member/owner of that culture means by a statement, whether or not s/he
agrees with the statement. So an American insider, whether or not s/he
agrees with the pledge of allegiance can explain it to a visitor with some
confidence because s/he owns the system of meanings in which it is
embedded.
Robert
__________________________________________________________________
Robert Serpell tel: ( 410 ) 455 2417
Psychology Department 455 2567
University of Maryland Baltimore County
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore MD 21250 fax: ( 410 ) 455 1055