Conceptual Roots of Internalization: From Transmission to Transformation

Abstract

The concept of internalization is traced through two lines of theorizing that include Freudian and social-learning accounts of socialization and the sociogenetic theories of general mental functions and development held by Janet, Baldwin, and Vygotsky. An account of internalization as transformation is presented. An analysis of earlier theorists’ views is proposed as a foundation for regarding internalization as a process involving transformations of semiotic material imported from the social world into personally constructed subjective experience. It is argued that researchers who work within the increasingly popular sociogenetic tradition would benefit from making explicit the historical connections between their versions of the concept of internalization and the thinking of major figures in sociogenetic theorizing. Explicit analysis of internalization as constructive transformation makes it possible to understand the uniqueness of personal subjective worlds and their social (intersubjective) developmental roots.