Urie Bronfenbrenner: Biography Of This Developmental Psychologist
Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) was a Russian-American psychologist who contributed much knowledge to theories of child development. He maintained a holistic perspective from which he proposed an Ecological Systems Theory, one of the most important contributions to evolutionary psychology.
Next We will review the life of Urie Bronfenbrenner in a brief biography seeing what his most important work consists of and the professional background that was decisive for his development as a psychologist and researcher.
Urie Bronfenbrenner: biography of a pioneer in developmental psychology
Urie Bronfenbrenner was born in Moscow, Russia on April 29, 1917. At the age of 6, Bronfenbrenner moved with his family to the United States, where his father would work as director of research at the New York Institute for the Mentally Defective.
In 1938, Bronfenbrenner graduated with a degree in psychology and music from Cornell University, subsequently completed graduate study in Developmental Psychology at Harvard University, and finally earned a doctorate degree in the same area from the University of Michigan. in 1942.
Several years after completing his studies, and during the Second World War , Bronfenbrenner worked as a psychologist within the armed forces of the United States Army. Many of these experiences were an important basis for the theories that he would later develop.
After working in the army, he taught classes at different universities on psychology, human development, family studies, among other topics. Part of her goals during her professional development were focused on that theories about human development had a direct impact both in psychology students, as well as in policies and public opinion in general.
It was from this that Bronfenbrenner participated significantly in the design of programs, where he managed to translate theories on psychological development into operational language, specifically in the area of child development, and the lower-income socioeconomic sectors in the United States.
What is a system according to Bronfenbrenner?
The Ecological Systems Theory is Bronfenbrenner’s main work In this, he plans a perspective of psychological development that brings together different theoretical proposals, not only evolutionary psychology but also social psychology.
Broadly speaking, it talks about how an individual develops not only from his genetic load or the education he receives from his nuclear family, but in said development there are elements in different environments that are also determining factors. For example, school, work environment, neighborhood, culture.
This is because humans are not only biological beings, but also relational ones, that is, Our personality and psychological development are largely shaped by the characteristics of the systems in which we live and that make us have things in common or different with others.
Each system coexists, there is no one above the other but rather they are interrelated. For this reason, if one system is altered in a significant way, this can affect the child’s need for exploration and readiness for learning in the other systems.
In addition, each one contains roles, norms and rules which together are determinants for human development.
The 5 systems of Ecological Theory
It is an “ecological” theory of systems because it focuses attention on the relationship that exists between different environments and how this relationship determines the development of the human being. Currently, the Ecological Systems Theory is considered one of the bridges between the biological, psychological and social (biopsychosocial) perspectives of development
For Bronfenbrenner, there are five fundamental systems for individual psychological development, and they range from the family to political and economic structures: the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, the macrosystem and the chronosystem. We briefly review them below.
1. Microsystem
It is the immediate and closest environment. It is fundamentally about our group of belonging: family, caregivers, school, neighborhood, peers
2. Mesosystem
It is composed of the connection between different environments of the microsystem, for example, between home and school
3. Exosystem
The exosystem is made up of environments that are considered secondary, because they affect development indirectly. For example, the place where the parents work
4. Macrosystem
This last system is made up of the cultural environment. Sometimes it goes unnoticed, however it is from which certain behavioral norms are generated that affect other systems. An example is the cultural differences between Western and non-Western cultures or the differences between policies and economic systems.
5. Chronosystem
Later, Bronfenbrenner added a fifth system to his theory. The chronosystem is made up of the patterns by which our development occurs throughout life and through the different environments mentioned above.
Outstanding works
Among the most representative works of Urie Bronfenbrenner’s thought are Two Worlds of Childhood (1972), Influencing Human Development (1963) and The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design (1979).
