Bronfenbrenner - Bioecological Model

Question 1

How does Bronfenbrenner define learning in the bioecological model?

Answer 1

Bronfenbrenner defines learning as human development. Human development is defined as the continuity and change in the biopsychological characteristics of humans as individuals and groups.

Laymans Terms: Learning is human development. Human development is how a person stays the same and changes throughout their life based on their biology and their environment. This applies to individuals, groups, and society.

Question 2

What is the PPCT model of development?

Answer 2

The bioecological model is the PPCT model which stands for:
Process
Person
Context
Time

Question 3

What is Process in the PPCT?

Answer 3

Process is actually Proximal Processes, which are the interactions between organisms & the environment that operate over time and the primary mechanisms for human development.

Question 4

What is the KEY factor of human development?

Answer 4

Proximal processes. Essentially the interaction of a human and the environment.

Question 5

What is meant by Person in the PPCT?

Answer 5

A person has their own characteristics that are influential in shaping the direction and power of proximal processes.

Question 6

What are the three personal characteristics that are influential to proximal processes?

Answer 6

1) Demand
2) Resources
3) Force

Question 7

What is the personal characteristic called demand?

Answer 7

These are “Personal characteristics,” such as age, hair, gender, skin color, height, and weight, etc.

Demand characteristics are “immediately apparent” to another person.

Question 8

What is the personal characteristic called Resources?

Answer 8

These are mental, emotional, social, and material characteristics.

Resource characteristics are not “immediately apparent” but are often guessed by others.

Question 9

Mental/emotional resource characteristics are…

Answer 9

Past experiences, skills, intelligence, etc.

Question 10

Social/material resource characteristics are…

Answer 10

Food access - good or bad, Housing quality, parental dynamics - caring or neglectful, educational experiences.

Question 11

What is the personal characteristic called Force?

Answer 11

These are an individual’s temperament, motivation, persistence, and the like.

Question 12

What is Bronfenbrenner’s position on a person’s ability to change their context?

Answer 12

Bronfenbrenner posits that a person can change or have an effect on their context either passively or actively.

Question 13

How can a person change their context (environment) passively?

Answer 13

A person changes their environment passively through their demand characteristics. For example, a police officer will interact very differently with a black person than with a white person.

Question 14

How can a person change their context (environment) actively?

Answer 14

A person will change their environment actively through their resource characteristics. For example, a person may be in a low-income school with little educational opportunity, yet their intelligence might be so high that a teacher notices and gives them an educational opportunity that wouldn’t exist had their intelligence been lower.

Question 15

How can a person change their context (environment) MOST actively?

Answer 15

A person can change their environment in the most active way by their force characteristics.

For example, a person who is highly motivated to get a Ph.D. May work extremely hard through all their low-income schools to then be admitted to a Ph.D. program.

Question 16

What is Context in the PPCT model?

Answer 16

Context is a person’s environment in which they live. This encompasses their immediate environment (home) to their distal environment (Their countries culture).

Question 17

What are the four inter-related systems of context?

Answer 17

1) Microsystem
2) Mesosystem
3) Exosystem
4) Macrosystem

Question 18

What is the Microsystem?

Answer 18

Any environment a person spends a GOOD DEAL of TIME engaging in activities and interacting with people in. One person can have more than one microsystem.

Examples: Home, School, Peer Groups, Family gatherings, Church, etc.

Question 19

What is the Mesosystem?

Answer 19

The Mesosystem is the interrelations between various microsystems.

Example: Charles and Emilee coming over to study and being in my house where they meet my dogs and talk to Ben is two of my microsystems interrelating.

Question 20

What is the Exosystem?

Answer 20

Any environment that a person is not directly interacting in, but has an indirect effect on the development of that person.

For example, Ben’s job would be my exosystem. I do not interact within his job, but his traveling for work directly affects me.

Question 21

What is the Macrosystem?

Answer 21

The Macrosystem envelops all of the other systems. It is any group that shares values or beliefs. But for a macrosystem to influence the development of a person it needs to directly interact with one of the person’s microsystems.

Examples: Culture, subculture, or other extended social structures.

As a personal example, academia has a culture that directly interacts with my microsystem of school/work. This culture is being taught to me and changing my development.

Question 22

What are the three categories of Time in PPCT?

Answer 22

1) Micro-time
2) Meso-time
3) Macro-time

Question 23

What is Micro-Time?

Answer 23

Micro-time is what is occurring during the course of a specific activity or interaction.

Question 24

What is Meso-Time?

Answer 24

Meso-time is the extent to which activities & interactions occur with some consistency in the redeveloping person’s environment.

Question 25

What is Macro-Time?

Answer 25

Macro-Time, previously called the chronosystem. Is the historical time that a person is in at a point in development.