The concept of development in Bronfenbrenner\'s theory PDF

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It is important to note that the theoretical model we are now dealing with has not only studied development during childhood and adolescence, but assumes that the interaction that occurs between the subject and its development contexts affects all stages of the life cycle. In addition, it attaches g...

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THE CONCEPT OF DEVELOPMENT IN BRONFENBRENNER'S THEORY

Introduction Bronfenbrennner, presented the basis of his theory in various theoretical publications and, especially inresearchpapers, the fundamental core of it is reflected in its volume published in 1979 with the title the ecology of human development. Subsequently, there are also many written documents that specify or contribute novel questions to his theory (Bronfenbrenner and Ceci, 1994; Bronfenbrenner and Crouter, 1982; Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 1998; Bronfenbrenner, Mac Clelland, Wethington, Moen and Ceci, 1996). Before beginning to set out the basic principles of this theory, it is important to note that, despite Bronfenbrenner's insistence on the importance of understanding the relationships established between the subject and his environment, he really intends to develop an explanatory model of human development. However, as we will point out below, it does not fully achieve its objective as it pays little attention to the developing subject itself and the mechanisms that can produce evolutionary change, focusing entirely on the study of what is usually understood as the environment. Its starting point is usually in criticism of the low external validity of experimental methods, so used in Psychology between the thirties and fifties of the last century, as well as in the interest in studies on the environment taken from Gestalt psychologists. This is how it proposes its ecological model whose priority objective is the study of development in the context in which it is produced. This implies, in his own words, a new theoretical perspective for research in human development,36 as it implies a completely different way of interpreting the relationships between the subject and the environment. The Bronfenbrenner model has a broad explanatory power for evolutionary research since it can define quite precisely the possibility of generalizing, or not, the findings obtained in the different studies. It also provides a link between psychological practice and research, and is a powerful tool for the day-to-day work of psychologists who must make relevant decisions in the lives of children. Bronfenbrenner's theoretical approach, formulated as far back as 1979, was subsequently reworked by Bronfenbrenner, who realized the little attention he was paying to the developing subject and the explanatory mechanism of the subject. To this also contributed the criticism that some authors made to the model, calling it excessively environmentalistic and un integrative, by attaching very little importance to biological factors (Lerner, 1984). Thus, in the subsequent reworking

of theory, it is responsible for highlighting the importance of biological factors in psychological development, as well as the active role of the subject himself (Bronbenbrenner, 1986; Bronfenbrenner and Ceci, 1994; Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 1998). It is then that he goes on to call his bioecological model theory, making a critique of the little interest that until that time had had for the developing subject the research based on his theory. It was in his 1986 work that he made this criticism concrete in considering that while in 1974 he described evolutionary research as the study of the child's strange behavior in strange situations during the shortest possible period of time, in promotion there is an overabundance of studies on the non-developmental context. It is important to note that the theoretical model we are now dealing with has not only studied development during childhood and adolescence, but assumes that the interaction that occurs between the subject and its development contexts affects all stages of the life cycle. In addition, it attaches great importance to the temporal dimension as a fundamental aspect in the study of the influence of different contexts on development. It therefore considers it essential to also study the effects on the development of individuals of the great cultural changes at the macro-ecosystem level that occur during their lifetime. In relation to the above and in line with the objective of this book, we consider the criticism of American society and the psychology professionals that Bronfenbrenner makes at the end of his 1979 book very relevant, for forgetting the importance of systems or contexts on individual development. This tells us, for example, that when you see a problem in a certain child, you start by studying the possible difficulties that the child himself has. Parents are then blamed on these problems. And finally, if this does not work either, the ethnic group or social class to which the family belongs is blamed, regardless of the macro-systemic level that, obviously, a political analysis must contain. Therefore, Bronfenbrenner's theory derives the suitability of carrying out the analysis of the different contexts in which the subject develops, to see if they are able to meet the basic needs of humans. Ecological perspective of human development As mentioned above, the author, in his 1979 publication, intends to make it clear that his theory is evolutionary in nature and that, therefore, his main objective is the study of the development of the human subject. We define development as the process by which the developing person acquires a broader, differentiated and valid conception of the ecological environment and is motivated and able to carry out activities that reveal the properties of that environment, support and restructure it, at levels of equal to greater, in terms of its form and content. Bronfenbrenner considers it necessary to highlight three aspects of this definition. The first is that the change that occurs with development is not ephemeral, nor does it depend on the situation and implies a reorganization with some stability in time and space. The second, that change occurs at the level of perception and

action. The third concerns the area of representation, as it points to the importance of knowing how, both in the field of perception and in the field of action, the world of the developing person extends beyond the immediate situation. However, until its publication in 1986, Bronfenbrenner neglects in his work the study of the mechanisms inherent in the subject that have to do with evolutionary change, both theoretically and empirically. In his 1979 book he writes that his conception of development rests on Lewin and Piaget, resuming the Piegetian concept of cognitive adaptation to explain how development is the result of interactions between the individual and the environments in which he is immersed. However, despite these statements, our author stops addressing this important theoretical problem in order to deal primarily with studying development contexts. In relation to his problems in defining development, Bronfenbrenner offers us in the same work an operational definition that bears many similarities to the Vygotskyan concept of the nearby development zone. In particular, this author points out that, in order to assert that there has been development, it is necessary that the change in the conceptions or activities of the person be extended to other moments and to other contexts. In his work of 1994 and 1995, he used precisely in this sense the concept of upcoming processes. As we said, in the reformulation that bronfenbrenner makes of his theoretical model of 1986, and which he finally calls a bioecological model, he recognizes the shortcomings of his previous proposals as far as the developing subject is concerned. In this new version of his theory, he makes interesting contributions about the development process that closely resembles the concept of microgenetic change that, for socio historical psychologists, occurs when nearby development zones are created. Moreover, it clearly assumes that the active role of the subject in interactions with the medium is much of the engine of that development. In this sense, Bronfenbrenner and Morris consider that there are three characteristics of people who have the most influence on the formation of their own development process, for their ability to affect the direction and power of proximal processes over the course of life (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 1998). The first concerns the personal provisions that implement these processes in a specific domain of development. The second has to do with bioecological resources, i.e. the physical, biological and cognitive characteristics of subjects, which facilitate – or hinder – the move to the next stage of development. Finally, the third refers to the characteristics required to facilitate or hinder relationships with the medium that, such as temperament, physical appearance or sociability, make others more or less prone to interaction and therefore facilitate or hinder the implementation of the near development process. The combination of results in variations of these three characteristics results in different forms of personal structure that have a differentiated impact on development. Therefore, the shape, power, content and direction of development processes varies systematically depending on factors such as: the characteristics of the developing person; the medium – both near and

far – in which such development takes place; the nature of the development outcomes under consideration; and the continuities or changes that occur over time over the course of life, in the specific historical period in which it takes place. In this way, we can say that in the theoretical model at hand, the characteristics of people are, at the same time, the origin and consequence of development processes. Despite these modifications, i.e. the attempt to include the biological subject in the latest versions of the theory, Bronfenbrenner continues to neglect – like, or even more, that he did in his early works – the analysis of the explanatory mechanism of psychological change. Thus the author could be placed in what Overton calls conventional intercationism, by not considering evolutionary change as structural in nature and, consequently, forgetting the study of the mechanisms of development. This was not the case, on the contrary, in his theoretical proposal of 1979, where he proposed the inclusion of the cognitive adaptation mechanism – understood in the Piegetian sense – as an explanatory mechanism for change (Overton, 1998). Analysis of development contexts: ecological research Bronfenbrenner's model is of extraordinary use in evolutionary research and, in fact, all of the publications of this author to which we have had access, are full of studies – developed both by him and his collaborators – illustrating a theory of enormous explanatory power. These works show the importance of the different factors and variables corresponding to the different development contexts, in explaining the results in a given research. One of the previous issues to consider when doing ecological research is that definitive results are virtually impossible in a design with clear time limits. The research work must be developed in successive phases that can complete the complex and multidimensional interactions that occur between the individuals that develop and the variables related to the different contexts in which such research takes place. A very important concept in Bronfenbrenner's work, which has not always been well understood by researchers is that of ecological validity. This concept, which he takes from Lewin (1943), has to do not only with the importance of studying the developing subject in a natural environment, but above all with what that research environment means to the subject himself. Bronfenbrenner defines ecological validity as the extent to which the environment subjects experience in scientific research has the properties that the researcher attributes or assumes it has (Bronfenfrenner, 1979). It is therefore not only that the environment is natural – as we will explain later, this author also admits the great usefulness of the research carried out in the laboratory – but above all, that there are no discrepancies between the subject's perception of the situation in which the research is carried out and the environmental conditions that the researcher tries or assumes. The author points to the need to use some strategies to ensure the ecological validity of research. First of all, it must be taken into account that, in order for a

design to be representative, not only the population to be studied has to be sampled, but also the situations in which that population is immersed or, in other words, the living conditions of the subjects who make up that population. Secondly, it insists on the fact that in order to understand the meaning of much of the behaviors of a subject taking place in a given social environment, it is appropriate for the researcher to participate actively in that context, assuming roles similar to those assumed by the participants. It is therefore a question of people who know the situation in the investigation, but at the same time have some research experience. The third possible or necessary strategy to ensure ecological validity would be to interview the subjects after the end of the experimental situation, to check whether their perception or interpretation of it is, or not, consistent with the objectives and intentions of the researcher. Finally, it would also be appropriate to obtain data relating to the same activity and from different environments – for example, the family environment and the laboratory – in order to identify the possible effects of the context. With regard to the latter strategy, it should be noted that Bronfenbrenner – unlike what some authors have interpreted – does not, a priori, advocate greater ecological validity to any particular research scenario. Thus, for example, it is considered that the laboratory can be an excellent context for certain studies, provided that it is being worked on and that, on the contrary, certain real environments may be inappropriate to obtain certain data – for example, the analysis of mother-baby interaction in an unknown environment. In this connection, Bronfenbrenner stresses the importance of experiments in ecological research on human development and defines the ecological experiment as one in which successive accommodations between the developing human organism and the different environments in which human development occurs are analysed. To do this, it is necessary to contrast the structural components of two or more environments, seeking to carefully control other sources of influence. In this sense, we cannot say that Bronfenbrenner's starting point is clearly influenced by a positivist narrative, as Overton (1998) seems to indicate. The author proposes at least one object of theoretical study – the progressive accommodation of an organism and its environment – from which he departs, by means of a hypothetical deductive model, the hypotheses related to research. It also proposes that in the early stages of a given investigation the experiments should be carried out, not to check hypotheses, but for heuristic reasons, to check the accommodation between an organism and its environment. In any case, it is important to note that the theory discussed here gives the experiment a fundamental importance in ecological research. In the work published with Morris in 1998, Bronfenbrenner reinforces the value of experiments in the early stages of scientific research, that is, in what he calls the mode or phase of discovery. This phase is considered by the authors very

important for Evolutionary Psychology as it is a discipline that is still in the early stages of development, which can clearly extend to the study of child and adolescent needs. They state that the strategy for carrying out these early stages of research is to carry out repetitive processes of successive confrontations between theory and data that allow us to be able to formulate hypotheses to be tested in a later phase or mode of verification. In the first phase, the objectives of which are the formulation of hypotheses for further empirical verification, it is not considered necessary to make statistical significance tests. Thus, the trends observed in the data can be perfectly valid and then proven in research that is already to deliver their results with the appropriate statistical tests. However, this does not mean that traditional reliability and validity requirements should not be required at the discovery stage. Such requirements must be respected – although differently from what is considered traditional in research – as they must be theoretically guided. Bronfenbrenner and Morris claim that the validation process must be developed at two levels. The first is that, within a given investigation, the result of each of the analysis stages is validated in the next, with a more differentiated formulation. The second level assumes that the generalizations that arise from a given research, have to be validated in relation to the findings of other studies clearly related to the one that develops, always taking into account the contextual variables contemplated in them. One of the most important aspects that derives from this model is the awareness, on the part of the researchers who follow it, of the impossibility of making simple and one-way causal attributions in the different phases of research. The activities, interactions, and roles manifested by a developing subject in a given context are determined by the multiple factors or variables in that context and the other systems in which it is immersed. The researcher will try to control as many as possible, but naturally the study of all of them is not possible in a single experiment or in a single phase of research. This means that research findings are progressing slowly, and that their results can often only be generalized to contextual situations similar to that studied. Finally, it should be noted that Bronfenbrenner addresses in much of his work the importance of considering the relations between science and politics (Bronfenbrenner, 1974 and 1979; Bronfenbrenner and Monis, 1998). These relationships do not only refer to the classical perspective, according to which social policy must adapt to the scientific knowledge obtained by the social sciences, but also considers that science needs to take policy into account. Bronfenbrenner does not merely postulate a relationship between the two fields, but insists on the existence of functional integration. For é1, knowledge and analysis of official policy is essential for the progress of development research

because it draws the researcher's attention to the aspects of the environment most important to people's cognitive, emotional and social development. And all this because politics is a part of the macrosystem that has an important impact on the other systems, and consequently on the developing individual. Undoubtedly, the relationships between science and politics are a very important aspect to take into account in the theoretical and research work of a discipline dedicated to the study of the needs and rights of children and adolescents. The contexts in which development occurs Undoubtedly, bronfenbrenner's most important contribution to Evolutionary Psychology is the detailed study of what is generically known as the environment. Leaving aside the controversy between inheritance and the environment, our author considers that development is caused by the complex interaction that is established between the characteristics of the individual and those of the different environments or systems in which such development takes place. The assumption of the interaction between the characteristics of the subject and those of the environment appears, more or less clearly, in almost all contextualist theories. However, what makes Bronfenbrenner's contribution really novel is his way of understanding systems or contexts. For him, systems must be considered dynamically and globally, which means that it is necessary to take into account all the elements that are part of it, as well as the multiple relationships that form between each and every one of them. To explain the relationships established between the different Bronfenbrenner systems, use the concept of ecological transitions, which refer...