URIE BRONFENBRENNER

URIE BRONFENBRENNER

  • Born: Russia, 1917

  • Early experiences shaped his ideas about how children adjust to new environments and how factors play a part in how children learn.

  • 1970s - developed his influential theory

  • 1979 -  "The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design"

  • DIED: 2005


ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS


MICROSYSTEM

  • Direct environment we have in our lives

  • includes the people we interact with daily

  • Bi-directional– Children are influenced by their close contacts, but they also affect the people and environments around them

  • Most direct, immediate impact on the individual

    • Family, Friends, School, Neighborhood, and Institutions 


MESOSYSTEM

  • Individual microsystems are interrelated and exert influence over one another in this system 

  • Forces of connections that surround the child

  • Made up of interactions and relationships between the different microsystems

    • Parent–teacher communication, Teacher–peer relationships,  Family–peer group interactions, Religious community–family interactions


EXOSYSTEM

  • External environments wherein the child has no direct interaction with but still impacts the child’s development by interacting with structures in the microsystem. 

  • Encompasses social context where a person lives and other aspects of environment

    • Father-Boss Interaction, Parent-Workplace Schedule, Principal-Teacher Interaction


MACROSYSTEM

  • Focuses on ways that cultural factors children are exposed to affect a child's development.

  • Have a cascading influence throughout the interactions of all other layers.

    • Values, Norms, Customs, Traditions, Ideology, Cultural Beliefs, Socioeconomic Factors, Ethnicity, etc.


CHRONOSYSTEM

  • Change in children and environment over time.

  • Predicted or unpredicted, internal or external.

  • Personal experiences that occur over the course of life, the various life transitions that people experience, historical events, and societal changes.

    • Time, Death of a family member, Parent’s divorce, Global pandemic


REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE

Microsystem

Mary’s parents are always absent in her life. This causes her to show signs of emotional instability and depression at school.

Mesosystem

Upon seeing this, Mary’s teacher tried to talk to Mary’s classmates after being unable to contact her parents to ask about her state.

Exosystem

She found out that Mary’s parents were both busy doctors with long working hours and unpredictable schedules, hence the lack of presence in their daughter’s life.

Macrosystem

Moreover, the pressure to follow the same footsteps as her parents also added great stress to Mary, as it limited her ability to explore personal interests, creating internal conflict.

Chronosystem

Now that she’s about to enter college, she decided to move out of her parents’ house, and decided to try to pursue her long overdue interest in arts. 


IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY

  • The framework’s holistic approach emphasizes the need to understand all aspects of a person's environment to appreciate the complex, interrelated factors that influence their development.


IN EDUCATION

  • Helps educators design inclusive educational programs that assess not only classroom interactions but also the home environment, neighborhood, and access to resources.


IN PSYCHOLOGY

  • It is used to examine the impact of parenting styles, peer relationships, and socio-economic factors on children's mental health and developmental outcome