Ecological System Theory: Relationship-Based Model

Relationship- Based Model The ecological systems theory is one of the many theories there is to see how a child is influenced by its surrounds. This theory was found by Urie Brofenbrenner, a Russian psychologist. Ecological System theory views the person as developing within a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of surrounding environment (Exploring Lifespan Development, fourth edition by Laura E. Berk page 19). The Ecological system is divided into five different levels, which are: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. Microsystem is a child's first ever surroundings for example family, school and daycare. A child has one of their first ever relationships with his/ her parents and family,

Mesosystem encompasses connections between mesosystem (Exploring Lifespan Development, fourth edition by Laura E. Berk page 19). A example of mesosystem is people or things that may not have constant interaction but can still affect a child's development, for example extended family, neighbors and teachers. A child’s academic progress depends on parent involvement in school life and on the extent to which academic learning is carried over the home( Wang and Sheikh-Khalil, 2014). If you teach your child to share and you constantly remind her/him to share, they will share at school and with friends. This level of the ecological system affects the way I grew up because in school I was taught to read and write in both English and Spanish which was an advantage because my first language is

Berk page 20). For example if a child has been raised to understand that drugs can be addicting, can sometimes kill you and aren't good for the body, then the child will believe this for the rest of their life. But if the child experiences the parents using drugs, then that is how the kid will grow up to do. One macrosystem that is the most influential in this generation is mass media, because kids go through the internet and will find videos influencing them to do things that aren't right. For example me, I'm constantly in social media and I see that the “perfect body" is the body that supper models have like victoria secret, chanel, gucci and so on so