Bronfenbrenners Theory of Development

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The Ecology of Human Development: Environmental Influences and Interactions Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Development HS 5003 Capella University March 8, 2009 The Ecology of Human Development: Environmental Influences and Interactions Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Development What has the psychological profession done to increase awareness of how we learn to understand what children need to develop into successful adults? Urie Bronfenbrenner developed theories that profoundly altered our understanding of how children develop throughout the life span. The purpose of this paper is to review research on how and what children need to develop into productive adults. Bronfenbrenner’s theory explains that interactions with others and the environment are important to development and we all experience more than one type of environment, including four distinct systems. The subsequent discussion offers an analysis of these levels and their influence to child development, and then the writer offers a personal analysis of the influence of the ecological theory in decision making. The theory suggests there are four levels of the environment that simultaneously influence individuals. Brofenbrenner suggest that we can’t fully understand development without considering how a person is influenced by each of these levels (Vander Zanden, 2007). Bronfenbrenner examines the mutual accommodations between the developing person and these changing contexts in terms of four levels of environmental influence: the microsystem, the mesosytem, the exosystem, and the macrosystem (Vander Zander, p. 8, 2007). The microsystem consists of the network of social relationships and physical settings in which a person in involved in each and every day. This setting may include the family or classroom settings. This system is classified as the immediate environment

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