An ecological model

Bronfenbrenner set out the basic principles of his ideas in his early ‘ecological’ model, these remaining pertinent even as the model became more complex and all- embracing over time.

2.3.1 Systems

As shown, Bronfenbrenner argued that development of every child was stimulated and determined by a range of ecological environments. He defined these at various levels, determined mainly by their distance from the personal, day-to-day experiences of the child.

Microsystems

The first and most proximate were ‘microsystems’, defined as the ‘complex of relations between the developing person and environment in an immediate setting containing the person’ (1977, p514). The most crucial was the family, then childcare and educational settings – social places where relations between the child and ‘significant others’ were underpinned by regular shared times and some form of attachment. Interpersonal relationships within these microsystems permitted or indeed inhibited the child’s engagement in setting-related social activities, bringing about development of some kind (Bronfenbrenner, 1995). In this way Bronfenbrenner emphasized Vygotsky’s legacy of child growth as a socially constructed process. For research, he proposed a phenomenological approach to discovering and understanding ‘perceptions, feelings, expectations, and intentions with respect to the situation in which they [the child and others] are located’ (1979, p127).

Mesosystems

Bronfenbrenner’s next ecological layer was termed as ‘mesosystems’, indicating a ‘system of microsystems’ (1993, p40). These interfaces did not involve the child, but incorporated interactions between others, such as parents, the broader family, childcare practitioners, teachers or other professionals with whom the child was

regularly engaged. Connective elements within these mesosystems derived from a shared interest in the child’s well-being and upbringing. Research into this aspect should focus on the interface between micro-settings, the various manifestations of this interface, and the impact of interactions on the activities of individual microsystems.

Exosystems

The third and increasingly more distanced level in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system referred to settings with which the child had no explicit or active involvement, but in which events and activities indirectly influenced processes within the child’s microsystems. These settings included parents’ work and a family’s social network, more formal agencies representing health, welfare and education, and even relevant national policies. These exosystems, according to Bronfenbrenner (1977), encompassed or impinged upon more immediate systems and therefore affected what happened within them.

Macrosystems

Finally, ‘macrosystems’, perhaps the least explicitly explained element of the model, encompassed the broadest social arrangements, related to but most distanced from the developing child. Bronfenbrenner (1995) included here society’s outlooks and value systems about childhood and child rearing, and the ways in which these are evident in social, legal, economical, health and educational arrangements. He saw these systems as being informal and implicit, mainly evident in ‘customs and practices of everyday life’ (p26). Impact from these settings was filtered down, influencing perceptions of policy makers, professionals and parents. Subsequently, for Bronfenbrenner, macrosystems also encompassed societal priorities, expectations

and resources. This was clearly illustrated when changing historical or cultural conditions altered the ways in which parenting, education, community support and resources advanced or hindered the overall functioning of microsystems.

This, however, was not the only direction of influence. Bronfenbrenner (1977) also identified a ‘bottom-up’ process, whereby the developing child itself brings about change in micro, meso, exo and even macrosystems. For instance, the child’s individual needs might bring about alterations in the family’s routine, or in the practice of childcare or educational provision, or may even contribute to society’s changing thinking and revisions at policy level.

Within this range of ecological influences, Bronfenbrenner stressed interconnectivity as a prominent feature. This was encapsulated in Bronfenbrenner’s (1979, p3) frequently cited description of ‘concentric, nested structures, each inside the next’, suggesting that each systemic level contributed to a complex overall scheme. As a consequence, as Bronfenbrenner delineated, an ecological research study was much more intricate than the single-setting or laboratory focus of much formal enquiry, and bi-directional influences should, in Bronfenbrenner’s view, form an important focus of enquiry at all levels.

2.3.2 Dyadic and other interactions

Within his systemic propositions about influences in a child’s life, Bronfenbrenner devoted most scrutiny to the first and most immediate level: the microsystem. Crucial at this level were interpersonal relations, the most important of these being ‘dyads’, the young, developing child’s interactions with another person, usually a parent. There were different types of such dyads: observational, joint-activity and primary, signaling different kinds of involvement by the child in shared pursuits with this other person.

When more people were involved, for instance both parents or others in a childcare or educational setting, he symbolized this (as he often tended to do) as a mathematical formula, ‘N + 2’ (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p58).

For Bronfenbrenner (1979) dyadic and ‘N + 2’ interactions were the ‘basic building block of the microsystem’ (p56), as well as the ‘most powerful environmental forces that instigate and influence … development’ (p45). Most imperative amongst them were primary dyads, those which continued to exist for the child when the other person was not present. When these occurred, they formed the highest level of interpersonal relationship: the ‘developmental dyad’ (1970, p60).

Bronfenbrenner examined extensively the developmental influences which derived from dyadic interactions, again mirroring and extending Vygotsky’s theories. Amongst many propositions, he suggested the pertinence of ‘reciprocity’: ‘What A does influences B and visa versa’ (1979, p57). For the very young child this involved an uneven power distribution, with the child in a less instrumental position. Researchers could, however, seek to capture the ‘gradual transfer of power’ (1979, p57) from adult to child, as the child learnt and grew up. Drawing on Drillien (1963), Bronfenbrenner (1994) eventually concluded that these reciprocal processes were ‘more powerful than those of the environmental contexts in which they occur’ (p39). He postulated that where interfaces between child and adult, or indeed amongst children themselves, were under-applied, the child had untapped potential for development.