This is the first ever introduction to Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Framework written specifically for undergraduate students. The author provides a carefully structured, guided introduction to Bronfenbrenner’s concepts, their interpretation, and their potential applications. Bronfenbrenner’s scientific analysis of the role the environment plays in human development earned him a premier place alongside Jean Piaget, Sigmund Freud, and Erik Erikson as a contributor to our understanding of developmental processes. His ideas are essential for analysing how development happens, how it goes astray, how to right it when it does, and how to create environments that will promote healthy development.
The Bronfenbrenner Primer walks students through each component of the framework in a logical order, helping students build a solid, systematic understanding. It describes the background and context that led Bronfenbrenner to develop his framework, illustrates a wide array of potential applications, and provides activities students can do to practice applying the framework to their own experience. Honed over 25 years of teaching Bronfenbrenner’s ideas, this text will be essential reading for students across the behavioral and social sciences.
1 Introduction to Urie Bronfenbrenner
2 From Ecology of Human Development to Develecology
3 The Framework
4 The Person and Development
5 Activities
6 Dyads and Relations
7 Important Characteristics of Relations
8 Roles
9 Settings
10 Ecological Transitions
11 Essentials of Systems Theory
12 Microsystem
13 Proximal Processes
14 Links and Relations between Settings
15 Mesosystem
16 Developmental Trajectory
17 Exosystem
18 Macrosystem
19 Chronosystem
20 Research Design
21 Bronfenbrenner’s Examples
22 Using Bronfenbrenner’s Framework
23 Exercises and Applications
24 Eco-Analysis
25 Develecology 001: Bronfenbrenner Made Plain
Appendix 1: Selected Works of Urie Bronfenbrenner Pertinent to Develecology
Appendix 2: Directory of Definitions, Propositions and Hypotheses
Biography
Lawrence G. Shelton is a Developmental Psychologist who has taught in the Human Development and Family Studies Program at the University of Vermont since 1971.
"Few scientists have had as profound an impact on the study of human development as Urie Bronfenbrenner. This textbook does a terrific job of explaining Bronfenbrenner’s most important ideas in a way that will help students really understand them and apply them to their own research. I recommend it highly." - Laurence Steinberg, Temple University, USA
"Lawrence Shelton has done a great service for generations of students to come by offering a comprehensive presentation of Urie Bronfenbrenner's approach to the ecology of human development. Shelton's book is clear, detailed, rich in its real world connections, and ‘keeps faith’ with Urie's vision of how to study and understand the complex processes by which the biological organism becomes the human person. As someone who knew Urie well I am pleased to see this important effort to keep his intellectual legacy alive and vibrant." – James Garbarino, Loyola University Chicago, USA
"Researchers and practitioners often use Bronfenbrenner's theory as a guiding framework for examining individual development within the context of a larger ecosystem. Thus, having an accurate understanding of his theoretical model is critical to improving the lives of children and families. Shelton reminds us of the importance of Bronfenbrenner's theoretical framework by offering a well-written primer that appropriately targets undergraduate students. Incorporating his book in the undergraduate human development curriculum would help students appreciate and understand the fundamentals of his framework in their undergraduate coursework and beyond." - Lauren E. Altenburger & Polina Soldatova, Journal of Family Theory and Review
