Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Development Theory

Bronfenbrenner felt that that the bioecological approach to development consisted of series of interacting influences that affect a person’s development. “According to Bronfenbrenner, development occurs through increasingly complex process of regular, active, two way interaction between the developing person and the immediate, everyday environment (Papalia, Olds & Feldman p.42). The first layer in Bronfenbrenner’s theory is the microsystem which is made up of an individual’s family, peers, and community. In Esmeralda’s case her microsystem would be made up of her parents, seven siblings, grandparents, extended family and her peers and adults from both her rural area and “whenever Mami was fed up with Machón, or with Papi she ran with us to Santurce,…a metropolis”(37). The next layer in Bronfenbrenner’s theory consists of the mesosystem which in Esmeralda’s case would be the conflict and development that occurs when the different parts of her microsystem interact. Exosystem or the third layer in Bronfenbrenner’s theory consists of an individual’s outer surroundings such as the politics of the time and the economy they reside in. An example of this that seems to support Bronfenbrenner’s theory is when the children in Esmeralda’s Puerto Rican school are given American food to eat, vaccinations and their mothers are taught about American standards of hygiene all on the United States government. Esmeralda doesn’t really understand why this is happening and instead just accepts it as a matter of course. When a classmate states to her “It’s all because of politics” (71) she answers “politics isn’t a disease like polio. It’s something men talk about on the bus stop” (71) not fully understanding either her classmates statement or the subject of politics that she is defending. Yet in accordance with Bronfenbrenner’s exosystem she is still affected by the politics of the time without being fully aware that they exist. The fourth layer in Bronfenbrenner’s theory is the macrosystem. The macrosystem is a group of cultural beliefs shared by a society. In Esmeralda’s world these include the Catholicism of her paternal grandmot

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