ABSTRACT
In order to understand internalization, defined as the reconstruction of an external, interpersonal activity as an internal, intrapersonal one, we must address a related basic problem of epistemology, the so-called learning paradox; namely, how can more complex mental systems be built out of less complex systems, without requiring knowledge of the more complex system in advance? The problem of the learning paradox is inextricably linked with internalization, because internalization is the mechanism given . the task of building these complex systems of higher thought, and thus development cannot happen without it. In order to solve these problems, we should no longer conceive of internalization of an action as a passage from outer to inner, or the progress of a child through the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as being pulled through it. Rather, the role of the caretaker is to ratify certain behaviors of the child as being more culturally appropriate than others; as such, the caretaker is not speeding up development, but clearing the underbrush for faster movement. If this is so, then areas of knowledge or skill that provide frequent opportunities for negotiation of meaning between the caretaker and child should develop faster than areas that do not, and areas in which this negotiation takes place on a level consistent with the goal of the child should be more easily learned and modified. Discussion of a child's goals and negotiation of meaning open up other questions: Which, of many goals? Whose meaning? Negotiation on
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what terms? These questions cannot be answered in a purely structuralist framework, in which the qualitative nature (although not the speed) of development cannot be changed by sociocultural factors. Thus, this chapter has two goals: first , to explore through the learning paradox the flexibility of the structure of the inventive developing mind, and second, to discuss the process by which the application of cultural meaning to cognitive development can be analyzed, given the extreme flexibility of such meaning.
