Urie Bronfenbrenner's Theory Of Development

Lifespan Development is Essential to Understanding Development
An important feature to the lifespan perspective in the study of developmental psychology is that recognition is given not only to changes (these being physical, cognitive and emotional) that can and do occur at all ages (the entire life-span) - from birth to childhood, adolescence, adulthood (including late adulthood), up until death it also recognises the importance of social setting, historical situation and ideological set of circumstances. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s theory of ecological development offers insights into the role of the individual in development - the individual is a proactive feature of the environment and the influence of environments or systems in development.

In Bronfenbrenner’s two fold approach, firstly he prioritises the reciprocity of relationships (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), secondly he attempts to extend his scope of study outwards - considering the social spheres (socio-political, historical and ideological set of circumstances) of influence as he considers the testing and laboratory rooms limited and isolated for the study of psychological development (1977, 1979). Bronfenbrenner’s focus is not on the isolated level of the development of the individual; Bronfenbrenner defines development as “individuals’ evolving conception of the ecological environment, their relation to it, as well as their growing capacity to discover, sustain, or alter its perspective” (Hook, 2009 p.502). As defined by Bronfenbrenner the “ecological environment is conceived topologically as a nested arrangement of structures, each contained within the next (Bronfenbrenner, 1977 p.514) - like a set of Russian dolls. A description of these structures - from the innermost level to the outside will be provided below however it is also important to understand that within these systems the individual’s experience is understood in relation to setting - this can be at home, school; in relation to role -

And from a South African context how would you apply and at what level or level would his model apply to trace possible developmental consequences of the apartheid system? The effects of apartheid system were felt in all levels of Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model - from the microsystem where the development of an individual was influenced by absence of parents, either as a result of parents working far from where they lived or poor access to health care; at a mesosystem where individuals found themselves in two different worlds - the world of work and the world of home and at the exosystem level - how has new policy and implementation of policy affected the development of an individual; also at the macro- and