Ecological systems theory

With the ecosystem approach, the psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner created in the late 1960s, a classification of factors of human development. He was influenced significantly by Kurt Lewin and his concept of locomotion.

Description

Ecosystem in this context means the entire physical and social environment of an individual. This Bronfenbrenner structured into the following system levels:

• Microsystems (in the graphic red ) include the immediate relations of people to other people or groups, so for example, the relationship with the family, the school, the workplace, etc. At this level of personal relationships make for example infants in interaction with the caregivers their own development conditions.
• A Mesosystem (blue) is the totality of relations of people, ie the sum of microsystems and the relationship between them. An example of a mesosystemische interaction is the interaction between daycare and home.
• An exosystem (gray ) is a network of relationships which the person belongs not directly so that it only has limited or no influence on its design. Nevertheless, the Exosysteme have sometimes considerable influence, as belonging to him caregivers of the person. Such exosystem is, for example, the job of the mother of a child. The low influence and high effect will be about the example of the interaction between teachers and parents in the school choice at the end of primary education significantly.
• The macro system (green) is the totality of all relations in a society, so that the norms, values ​​, conventions, traditions, the codified and unwritten laws, rules and ideologies.
• Chrono systems (yellow) include the temporal dimension of development, such as the striking points in time in development, and their biographical sequence. Bronfenbrenner distinguishes between " normative " Chrono systems (such as starting school or the inclusion of occupation ) and "non- normative " (such as serious illness of relatives or winning the lottery ).

Background

For Urie Bronfenbrenner the interaction between systems and the transition of people from one system to another are at the forefront of his thoughts. With this approach, he examines different conditions, in which there is human ( child in the first place) development. He works out, among other things, that it is important for the development that the various systems of a human being are consistent; that experiences and behaviors that a person has learned in a system, in other systems are applicable and people would have on the design of the various systems in which they participate, also have an influence.

Criticism

Critics argue against this approach, arguing that he only formal and the social mechanisms of power largely disregards.