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The Major Components, Strengths, and Limitations of Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Model

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Developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner first introduced the Ecologicial Systems model in the 1970’s. Bronfenbrenner argued that to understand human development, the environment in which the person belongs must be understood (Bronfenbrenner, U.1979). The Ecological Systems model concentrically depicts how a person’s development is influenced by their wider environment. In the original model there were four ecological levels in the system, however in 1979 Bronfenbrenner added an additional fifth level (Bronfenbrenner, U. 1994). With the developing person in the centre, the five progressive levels of environment include the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, marcosystem and the chronosystem. The microsystem refers to the activities, social roles and interpersonal relationships experienced by the individual in a face-to-face setting in their immediate environment. Examples of a microsystem include a child interacting with school friends and family. The mesosystem makes reference to the connections between the different aspects of the microsystem, for example the links between family and the work environment as the work environment can affect the family environment. The exosystem refers to the links between two or more settings with at least one of the settings not directly influencing the person, for example, the workplace of a parent and the home environment. The macrosystem is the overarching paradigms of the micro-, meso and exosystems. The macrosystem is the

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