Urie

Bronfenbrenner
AYESHA ANIS NAGORI
Introduction
 Urie Bronfenbrenner was a Russian-born American psychologist who is most
known for his ecological systems theory. He was born in Russia on April 29, 1917
and died in America on September 25, 2005.  
 Bronfenbrenner completed a double major in psychology and music at Cornell in
1938 and a PhD in psychology from the University of Michigan in 1942. He
worked as a clinical psychologist in the U.S. Army and as a professor at the
university of Michigan and at Cornell. He was co-founder of the Head Start
program situated in United States that provides education to under privileged
children.
His work 

 He gave the Ecological Systems Theory, which later in 1994 he

revised his theory and instead named it the ‘Bioecological
model’. to explain how the inherent qualities of children and their
environments interact to influence how they grow and develop.
 He wrote 3 books, namely Two Worlds of Childhood: U.S. and
U.S.S.R. in 1970, The Ecology of Human Development in 1979 and
Making Human Beings Human in 2005. 
Ecological Systems Theory

 Bronfenbrenner 1977, proposed that human development unfolds in

a nested set of systems, involving cultural, social, economic and
political elements, not merely psychological ones. These systems
and their interactions can nurture or stifle optimal development.
Policies and programs can play a major role in shaping these
systems.  He organized them in order of how much of an impact
they have on a child.
 The Five Ecological Systems

 Bronfenbrenner believed
that a person's
development was affected
by everything in their
surrounding environment.
He divided the person's
environment into five
different levels: the
microsystem, the
mesosystem,
the exosystem, the
macrosystem, and the
chronosystem.
The Microsystem
 The microsystem is the first level of Bronfenbrenner's theory and have direct
contact with the child in their immediate environment, such as parents, siblings,
teachers and school peers. Relationships in a microsystem are bi-directional. In
other words, your reactions to the people in your microsystem will affect how
they treat you in return. This is the most influential level of the ecological systems
theory. 
 If a child has a strong nurturing relationship with their parents, this is said to have
a positive effect on the child. Whereas, distant and unaffectionate parents will
have a negative effect on the child.