Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory

Many different theories have proposed in an attempt to explain lifespan development one of them is the ecological theory, which sees the role that the environment plays in influencing the growth and development of a person (Arch, Marylouise, &Spurr, 2006). This theory was formulated by an American Russian psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner born in 1917. He developed the ecological theory to explain how everything in a child and the child 's environment affects how a child grows and develops. According to Bronfenbrenner’s theory,(1998) each of the system has an effect on one’s lifespan development the five systems in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory are the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem (Bronfenbrenner & Morris,

This where the individual lives it is made up of family members, neighbourhoods, , peers, and other things that the person relates with directly on a regular basis. In the microsystem, the individual does not only observe the things that happen, but also plays an active role in the creation and construction of the experiences that they are likely to have (Jørgensen, 2004).A child who is neglected and abused or not given quality child care won’t have a good relationship with parents because they are never there they are neglecting and abusing them in return the child will then feel a sense of rejection, the child won’t become friendly towards people and the bidirectional influence will be that since the child is not friendly they are highly unlikely to have patient and positive reactions from their parent or peers. A child who is given quality child care the child will have good relations with parents because of the sense of love they are receiving and since the child is friendly and attentive they highly likely to have patient and positive reactions from their parents. If other people in the microsystem who are third

According to Bronfenbrenner (1979), the mesosystem includes of the processes and relations that occur between at least one setting containing the developing individual; examples include the relations between schools and home, and workplace and school. If a child is abused and neglected or is not given good quality care at home by parents the child will have difficulties in interacting or forming positive relations with teachers easily at school because of the rejection at home they will reject teacher-student relationship and this hinders the child growth compared to child who is given good quality child care the child’s caregivers take an active role in a child’s school, such as going to parent-teacher conferences and watching their child’s soccer games, this will help ensure the child’s overall growth. Since the child can’t form positive relations with teachers it will affect the child because they won’t be able to given the child the required