Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory

All relationships are bidrectional. Explain.

Adults affect children's behaviour, but children's biologically and social influenced characteristics - their physical attributes, personalities, and capacities - also affect adults behaviour.

How do elements of the macrosystem support child development?

The priority that the macrosystem gives to children's needs affects the support they receive at inner levels of the environment - e.g. countries that require generous workplace benefits for employed parents and high-quality standards for child care.

Mesosystem

The second level of the environment, the mesosystem, encompasses connections between microsystems, such as home, school, neighbourhood, and child-care.

Chronosystem

The temporal dimension of the ecological systems model, the chronosystem, in which changes occur within the child and in their environment that select, modify and create many of their settings and experiences. The environment is ever-changing.

Under what circumstances does the mesosystem support development?

When there are connections between microsystems - for example, links between home and child-care in the form of visits and cooperative exchanged of information.

The effect of third parties in the microsystem:

other individuals in the microsystem affect the quality of any two person relationship - if they are supportive, interaction is enhanced.

Informal Organisations in the Exosystem

Parents' social network - friends and family who provide companionship, advice, financial assistance, etc.

Formal Organisations in the Exosystem

Parents' workplaces, religious institutions, community health and welfare services, etc. - for example, flexible work schedules, maternity leave, etc. can support child rearing.

The Exosystem

The exosystem consists of social settings that do not contain children but that nevertheless affect children's experiences in immediate settings

Microsystem

The innermost level of the environment, the microsystem, consists of activities and interaction patterns in the child's immediate surroundings.

The Macrosystem

The outermost level of the environment, the macrosystem, consists of cultural values, laws, customs and resources.

Ecological Systems Theory

View the child as developing within a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment.

Five Environmental Structures

1. Microsystem 2. Mesosystem 3. Exosystem 4. Macrosystem 5. Chronosystem