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Look Where You're Going...Not Where You've Been! Essay

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Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory focuses on one’s development in the events of inside and outside layers of development. His studies and research have shown how children’s development is affected by their environment. His theory shows how environmental influences have an effect on the development of an individual and it focuses on the relationships between a child and the transforming environment. He proposed the environment can affect behavior and how behavior is expressed. Unlike behaviorism, Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory looks at the various levels of the environment, not just on behavior. It is composed of five environmental systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. Erik Erikson’s …show more content…

Next, the exosystem consists of social surroundings outside the immediate environment that indirectly influences the child’s development. Finally, the macrosystem consists of largest and most distant set of people and things, but still have a great influence over the child. It includes things like relative freedoms permitted by the national government, cultural values, the economy, wars, etc. These things can also affect a child either positively or negatively. The chronosystem, which was added later, refers to the chronological component in which the ecosystem is immersed. Things like changes in family structure or the effects of divorce during one’s lifespan. Through Bronfenbrenner’s approach, one can understand child development through social and cultural means as its emphasis is on reciprocal influences/relationships. An important subject for parents is the rate of how their child’s development compares with another child’s development. There are different views on how the similarities and differences among professionals’ values and beliefs on raising a child can impact their development. The development of infants depends on the people around them and their environment. Please remember that every child is unique -- growing and developing at different rates. Most of the time differences between children of the

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