Yes, there is definitely a connection in the context you describe, and
maybe quite generally, between the affective modes of our interactivity and
the degree to which we change in these interactions. I mused similarly here
and there in a wild and long post some time ago about variations on the ZPD
model (remember negative zopeds, issues of non-change, etc., and of the
emotional concomitants of positive zopedal development, etc.?)
Think about those Gay-Straight alliances on-line for school students. What
kinds of openness to interaction and change may be possible there that
would not occur in face-to-face interactions? You mention 'trust' and
'openness', and we have to think about why these are limited commodities,
and more so for some than for others. Translate them as 'vulnerability';
gauge social interaction environments for their threats to identity, to
autonomy, to bodily security. Gauge the permeability, or receptivity for
'internalization' in terms of perceived risk, past experience of betrayal
and pain. Socially mediated participation in interaction-as-development is
not always benign. By using the term development, with its progressivist
connotations, not only do we reinforce the ideology of childhood
incompetence (which naturalizes and so justifies oppression of younger
humans), but we avoid the fact that a lot of what the community wants to
make us into, make us do, believe, value, behave like is quite contrary to
the interests of most of us (women, gays, working class people, under-18s)
in many respects, regardless of whether it is arguably beneficial in other
respects. There are plenty of negative zopeds around, plenty of reasons NOT
to internalize. And as you point out, one excellent way to insulate
ourselves from negative internalizations is to opt out of various sorts of
externalizations. (My guess is the externalizations occur, but in safer
contexts.)
It sometimes strikes me as paradoxical that critical analysts like most of
us here can identify dozens of destructive ideological features of the
dominant culture that drives the curriculum and much institutionally
approved social interaction -- and still mostly identify internalization
with _positive_ development. Education and enculturative practices
frequently make people WORSE than they were ... unhappier, disempowered,
unconfident, bigoted, conflicted, distorted in personality, believing
destructive ideological naturalizations about themselves, others, the
community, ... and, as poor compensation, equipped with some saleable
skills, maybe.
What is the _normal_ experience of a young girl in a masculinized school
culture of science or mathematics? what distorted views of her self, and
even of the nature of reason and intelligence are foisted on her, or
attempt to be foisted on her, whenever she is open and trusting and
believes in the good-will of teachers and fellow-students? Who may,
subjectively, have good-will, of course, ... but can't she feel the
wrongness nonetheless? (The few in-depth interview studies I know of in
this domain suggest girls do feel it strongly up to an age at which they
stop voicing it, under mounting social pressure.)
What is the _normal_ experience of a young gay boy in a hyper-masculinized
culture of physical education and sports at school? Ditto, ditto, ditto ...
What are the normal experiences of African-American, Latino/a, and so many
other students in the anglocentric culture of not just the curriculum, but
the norms of interaction and socialization of the school? or of any student
from an economically, politically oppressed sector of society, from any
class-stigmatized subculture ('blue-collar', 'redneck', 'hick' ...) in a
hyper-middleclass culture of the school? or even of a religious
fundamentalist student in the largely secular-atheistic culture of the
curriculum (and it is, whatever our demurrers)?
Even the dominant, upper-middle class Anglo- or quasi-Anglo (obviously I am
using the US caste system to illustrate most of these points)
masculine-identifying, straight-identifying, male student is often going to
find a felt 'wrongness' in a school culture that ideologically privileges
'adult' (really middle-aged) status and perspectives in oppressive ways,
and also represents most centrally the intellectualist faction within the
dominant culture, trying to foist attitudes of theoreticism and
intellectualism on students from the other factions, whose home and peer
cultures are basically pragmatic and materialistic. Even at home, these
most privileged young people are subject to age-based oppressions and are
gradually being socialized out of any tendencies toward altruism that may
have cropped up ... and many feel the wrongness of these internalizations.
It seems to me frankly a miracle that any students or young people are
genuinely open to 'internalization' ... there must be powerful biological
imperatives for early learning warring with continual feelings of wrongness
about many of the particular learnings being, only partially, internalized.
I think we vastly underestimate resistance to enculturation, even on the
part of the very young.
We are too impressed with the miracle of learning to see how much many
students hate what people are trying to get them to internalize. We are too
impressed with the usefulness of what we see we are teaching to appreciate
the destructiveness of what we are also teaching but don't see.
We attribute lack of learning to lack of aptitude or motivation, rather
than to mechanisms of defense against felt attack. When students resist the
wrongness, they resist the useful parts of what we teach as well. Those who
resist most are those furthest from the dominant habitus, and they
consequently learn least what the dominant market rewards. But hopefully
they also learn least to see themselves and the world from a perspective
that denigrates their being.
Non-internalization is a vast phenomenon in education, socialization,
enculturation, and life-span development -- for which our disciplines have
ridiculously fragile accounts compared to the elaborate theories we have
about internalization. How can we trust theories of in/externalizations
that do not also account for non-in/externalizations?
JAY.
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JAY L. LEMKE
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
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