Hey folks, this is Brad Stucki, and I'm excited to be here to share
with you a little bit of the things that I've learned from this particular
theorist. I signed up for Urie Bronfenbrenner and his
bioecological theory of child development, and we've talked
about this a little bit already in class, and so I'm excited to
build on what we've already talked about. So here we go.
I'd like to start by sharing a little bit of the overview of what
Bronfenbrenner taught and what he studied. His work focuses
on the development of the child with their environment, and so
it shows how the child interacts with different systems and different
people, and how it affects them to become who they end up being--
who their individual person is. So we'll go ahead and we'll just
jump right into it. Okay, so the first system is the microsystem.
This is the most simple. It is the child interactions with their family,
with their peers, it is their individual, personal relationships that they have
with one another that shape them into who they are and who they become.
And so an example of this would be the child learning from their parents
or from their teachers. It may be them picking up their different social cues,
their laugh. It could be just observing the parent, or listening to what they say
and copying those same standards and so it's just the interaction
between those two-- the child and the parent, or the child and
their teacher, the child and their friends-- that helps them develop
into their individual person. Okay, so the next one-- oh, so actually,
every time we talk about a system I'm just gonna lay down a line that
has the definition of it, and I'll just reiterate what it says, and so the
microsystem is just an interaction or support between the individual
and their direct relationship, like their parents.
So the next system is the mesosystem, and this one
is a system of microsystems. So a microsystem that's
like the parents, the friends, the teachers, and the mesosystem
is the interaction between these two microsystems. And the results
of those affects the child positively or negatively. So here's an example
of the mesosystem. In this post, you see that there are friends, and you
put them together with the parents, like maybe they come over, and if they
have a negative reaction-- if they disapprove of the friends, results in
the top part, where the child will be sad, they may have a negative
development. They're pushing against the parents, maybe have
negative feelings towards the parents, whereas the bottom,
if the parents approve of the friends, there's a positive development
where the child trusts the parents more, trusts the friends more,
and this is positive all together. And so that's an example of the
mesosystem and how the different microsystems interact to affect the child.
And so that's the mesosystem, it's the interaction between different microsystems
that affect the child. The exosystem is the next step up from being further
away from the child. And so if you look at the second line, it describes what the
exosystem is. It is people or places that children may not directly interact
with, but still impact their lives. And so, an example of this is the
community or the neighborhood they grow up in, the government,
the church, their parents' workplace. And certain examples.
And so the example of an exosystem, the top one is a great example.
It's a father who is continually passed up for a promotion by
an indifferent boss at the workplace, who may take it out on his child and
mistreat them at home. And so the child never interacted with the parent's
workplace, but received the results of the stress and anger from the parent,
and so that's what an exosystem is. And the bottom one talks about a
mother who leaves to go to the military and the child develops
anxiety, even though she's never been to her parent's workplace,
doesn't know why their parents are leaving. And so that's the result of
the exosystem. And so the exosystem is something-- an interaction, setting,
that does not involve the child but still affects them.
Okay, and so the next one is the macrosystem, and is described
as the effects of larger principles defined by the macrosystem.
And so that's like cultural values, religious values, customs, and laws,
and I guess also it includes the mass media.
And so an example of that is culture-- culture's a collection of beliefs,
customs, and art, and people who live in those customs are expected
to live certain ways. And so the macrosystem affects the child
because of those cultures, because of what they're
expected to live, and that affects who they become
and the development of that child. So like an example I use
is the societal culture where the father's the breadwinner,
when that's not really the case it is now, but it still affects the
child to maybe want to be that breadwinner and to
not allow his wife to provide for their family.
And so macrosystem is just the effects of culture, religious beliefs,
their views and lifestyle of a child, and so it helps develop that child
to become who they are.
The last one is the chronosystem, and this one relates to time,
and so it's the passage of time or the time and era that they live in
that affects the child. Like war-time, depression, being a 'baby boomer'--
quote, unquote-- to the gen-Z, millennials, and that depiction
affects how the child is seen and also how they live.
And like an example of that is the Great Depression. My grandmother
lived around the time of the Great Depression, right after,
and she grew up never throwing anything away, that she'd find every little use
of every single item that she bought to use and use until it wore out.
So that is an example of the chronosystem and how the time and era that you live in
affects who you are and what you become. And so that's a chronosystem,
is the effect of time on the child, the influence of time. And so now that we
understand all this, how does it affect our teaching? And one of the articles
I found, it says, 'by studying the various ecological systems, Bronfenbrenner's
ecological systems theory is able to demonstrate the diversity of interrelated
influences on children's development. Awareness of the contexts that children
are in can sensitize us to variations in the way children may act in
different settings.' So as a teacher, as we're aware of how the child's
development may be influenced by these different systems, we can
do a better job in teaching and being aware of our students
so that we can be the best teacher that we can. That we can give them
individualized teaching that will help the student.
And so that's what I got from Bronfenbrenner's theory,
and hopefully it helps you as well in helping to individualize your
students' teaching to help them to have the best education and
development that they can have.
So here is the bibliography, and I'm excited to hear what you guys
have to say, so thank you.