Bronfenbrenner Ecological Model Summary

I chose the reading about Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development. Summarily, this reading introduces the history of the ecological model, the idea of proximal processes, genetic inheritance, and the five components of the model. Bronfenbrenner’s (1993) ecological framework focuses on how a variety of environments affect an individual, and this model was first introduced in the 1970s. (p. 37) According to Bronfenbrenner (1993), proximal processes are the interaction between the individual and “the persons, objects, and symbols in its immediate environment” (p. 38). Examples of proximal processes can take place in “parent-child and child-child activities, group or solitary play, reading” and etc (Bronfenbrenner, 1993, p. 38).

38). In addition, genetic inheritance can also have effect on “the magnitude of proximal processes and the quality of the environments in which they occur” (Bronfenbrenner, 1993, p. 41). The model includes five parts: microsystem, mesosystem, exosytem, macrosystem and chronosystem. Microsystem is between the person and social settings like “family, school, peer group, and workplace” while “a mesosystem is a system of microsystem” (Bronfenbrenner, 1993, p. 39. p. 40). In addition, exosystem is between the person and two or more indirect environments (Bronfenbrenner, 1993, p. 39. p. 40). Chronosystem is the outermost part of the model, and it "encompasses change or consistency over time not only in the characteristics of the person but also of the environment in which that the person lives" (Bronfenbrenner, 1993, p.