Bronfenbrenner's ‘bio-ecological’ model and its application to understanding children's development

Starting in the 1970s, Urie Bronfenbrenner established a complex system of ideas about child development with which he sought to influence social policy and childcare practice in the USA. He argued that child development was dependent on contextual elements. Later, with recognition of a broader and more extended range of factors influencing growth and progression, his model became termed as 'bio-ecological'. Bronfenbrenner's original ecological' model argued for the importance of both environmental and social factors in children's development. Bronfenbrenner explained how influential contexts were located at a range of distances from the child's personal day-to-day experiences. The most distanced level in Bronfenbrenner's model referred to contexts in which the child has no explicit or active involvement, but which indirectly influence processes within the child's microsystems. Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model also encompassed the personal factors which the child brings, often congenitally, to her or his dyadic or multi-person activities.