Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

Implications of Cultural Psychology for Guiding Educational Practice 377
Internalization of external experiences is derived from social interactions that are mediated
through use of artifacts, and as such, internalization is simultaneously an individual and a social
process. Relatedly, externalization is also an individual and a social process through which
the application of schemas and cognitive processes work to create/transform existing semiotic,
ideal/conceptual, and material artifacts, and animate learning. Conceived as a representational
activity, internalization is a process that occurs simultaneously in social practice and in the
mind. The appropriation of semiotic artifacts—symbol systems—as an internalization process
translates into the transformation of communicative language into inner speech. Internalization
processes are those through which individuals construct minds in interaction with the external
social world(s) of other individuals.
Legitimate Peripheral Participation
The notion of legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and Wenger, 1991) is the process
through which individuals who enter a community of practice, recognized as peripheral participants
(less experienced members of the community), appropriate a community identity (personal
epistemology) through emergence in the practices of the community. Wenger explains that, “Because
learning transforms who we are and what we can do, it is an experience of identity. It is not
just the accumulation of skills and information, but it is a process of becoming – to become a certain
person, or conversely, to avoid becoming a certain person” (Wenger, 1998). As an individual
engages in a community of practice, or a community of learners, he or she would assimilate an
identity (like-mindedness) similar to the members of that community. This is accomplished by
providing for opportunities to engage in the patterned ways of conducting practice, first observing
and then practicing. Situating the peripheral participant within activity contexts of the community,
mediating the participant’s learning through cultural artifacts of the community, and assisting the
peripheral participant to appropriate the shared beliefs and meanings of the community through
its culture, cognitively develops the peripheral participant over time to move from the periphery to
a more central participation. Mediation of an individual’s actions and practices, through cultural
artifacts in social interaction, is the essential precondition for cognitive and social development.
Mediated Agency—The Authority of Cultural Artifacts
In activity theory, Wertsch and Rupert (1993) explain that agency refers to who it is that
carries out the action, and by extension in cultural–historical activity theory, mediated agency
refers to “individual(s)-operating-with-mediational-means.” If the focus on mediated agency is
on the actions of participants within communities of practice, and more specifically its focus is on
social dimensions of consciousness—mediational means employed in mental functioning, either
intermental or intramental functioning (Wertsch, 1985). Mediated agency is concerned with how
forms of social interaction maybe internalized to form individual mental processes; cognitive
reasoning processes.
Mediated agency understands that human action is fundamentally shaped by the mediational
means it employs, within situated activities of learning and practice. Relatedly, it is understood
that appropriate mediational means (artifacts) are necessary to create solutions to problems,
to engage in reasoning and to have certain thoughts. Mediated agency also acknowledges that
shaping human action through the use of cultural artifacts does not imply simply a static body of
knowledge or practices. Rather, it recognizes that tensions arise through the interaction between
mediational means and the individuals using them, which results in a continuous process of
transformation and creativity (Wertsch and Rupert, 1993).
An inherent property of mediational artifacts (means) is that they are culturally, historically,
and institutionally situated within and across culture(s). Therefore, because of the sociocultural