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Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model: Application to real life
Introduction
Urie Bronfenbrenner was an American psychologist who has made a major contribution in the field of the study of human child development. In his field of developmental psychology, he researched and identified a theory or a model which was both complex but simple to apply in real life. This theory, called the “Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological model”, is a model consisting of five layers of ecosystems which a child faces in his/her growth phase from baby to adult. This model lists these ecosystems in order of the most intimate or immediate ecosystem of parents and family to the most expansive ecosystem of the society. The benefit of this model is it helps us breakdown development of the child into the most basic divisions, to understand their maturity increments at each level. It also helps in understanding how learning can be made more absorptive and better at each level, realizing difficulties and anomalies at each level. This understanding is indeed very important as a child’s mind is like a lump of wet clay, which will take the shape of whatever it is made into. Without further ado, we will go into detailed description of this model and how it can be applied into our lives. Below is a representation of the model.
Level 1- The Microsystems
The microsystems consist of the basic and innermost layers of a child’s environment, and contain all the possible places where a child learns to interact first, as soon as he/she is born and becomes an external part of the world. These places make the first impact on the child and slowly but steadily determine their future decisions.
1.1 Family- family is the innermost society of blood-related people where a child is born into. Family can turn out to be an intriguing factor as it leads to an unspoken position in the society, which is based on the status of the family. Also, family determines your first touch of love, your first mitigation of hunger and becomes your first playmate. Feeling secure starts with family and thus it is important to ensure the baby that it is in good hands and give them lots of love and attention.
1.2 School- School becomes a child’s first home away from home. After 4-5 years of age, a kid spends the most quality time in school, in turn getting most of his/her learning from there. It is incorrect to presume the better and costlier the school, the more the learning. Learning and development solely depends on the trustworthiness of the school, how much a school can give love, education and respect to a child in their growing years, which later on leads to developing their personality.
1.3 Neighbourhood- a very important aspect of a child’s development is where or in what environment the kid is growing up, both inside his house or outside his house. Neighbourhood plays an important role in realizing one’s potential sometimes too, and also helps a child learn stuff like how other families live, get-togethers and respecting each other’s privacy and helping each other in need, without expecting in return.
1.4 Peers-peers form an integral part of growing up of a child from a very small age to prime adulthood. Peers start trends, peers convince to experiment with things which may not be acceptable by society or family, and also support when nobody is around. A peer group determines how a child’s mind may run, and sometimes even controls their actions. So, choosing a good peer circle for your child from the...