Introduction Contemporary developmental science is considered as one of the broadest fields of knowledge connecting sociology, biology, psychology and neuroscience together in many different theories. All of them have been constantly developing since 1930s when Jean Piaget introduced his theory of cognitive development. One of the most significant and well-known theories is Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological theory of people development. A lot of practical implementations were generated based on this theory (Eriksson et al., 2018). Moreover, it is one of the few that tries to connect nature and nurture generating unique thus very complex framework to work with people development. In this essay we want to address the following questions: 1) What are the main conceptual ideas of the Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological theory; 2) What are the advantages of the theory from the developmental perspective; 3) What are the limitations of the theory? To do so, we will first briefly describe the topics and constructs covered by the theory and then discuss existing literature on the topic providing arguments concerning our research questions. Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological theory Originally introduced in (Bronfenbrenner, 1974) ecological model of human development has gone through a lot of revisions by Bronfenbrenner and his colleagues. Nevertheless, the main ideas and concepts staid the same. Ecological and later Bioecological theories implement so called ecosystems that affect human development and each other. The original set included: Microsystem (home, parents, other children, friends), Mesosystem (interactions between microsystem elements), Exosystem (local government, parents’ workplaces and friends), Macrosystem 1 (ideologies, social norms, economic system, culture). These systems and their interplay had been considered as the main contributors to the human developmental process. Nevertheless, the last revision of the theory made by Bronfenbrenner himself (Bronfenbrenner, 1995; Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994) put forward new ideas and create a paradigm shift in the field. These new ideas are represented in the new Chronosystem added to the original set (stands for time itself, historical events and natural disasters) and two propositions that introduce the new paradigm. According to these propositions individual is not only a subject of the influence of the ecological systems but an active human organism, whose biopsychological characteristics affect the development. The reciprocal interaction between the individual and its environment compose the development throughout one’s life span. In the propositions Bronfenbrenner also introduced proximal processes – such interactions that could be considered effective in the terms of development of skills and abilities, for example, parent-child activities, reading, child-child interactions etc. Bronfenbrenner noticed that it is important to investigate the ideas posed by the propositions using process-person-context-time (PPCT) model. Where process refers to the proximal processes, person – to individual differences, context – to external differences, time – to the time itself. Theory’s advantages From the scope of the developmental science the bioecological theory has some very huge and unique advantages. First of all, there are a lot of already existing examples showing bioecological theory’s practical utility. For example, the Head Start Program in the US, that was created in 1960s with a great impact of Urie Bronfenbrenner and his ideas, provides 2 assistance to families with low social economic status. The latest research have shown that children who attended Head Start programs ended with higher incomes as adults compared to those that did not (De Haan & Leuven, 2020). Secondly, the bioecological theory connects together social science, biology, psychology and even history and economics. That allows us to investigate developmental processes taking into account their complexity and generate fascinating and practically oriented hypothesis and ideas. A lot of other developmental theories investigate some concrete parts of human development (Microsystem in Adler’s attachment theory, cognition in Neo-Piagetian theories, emotional development) but Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory is like a glue that connects them together and defines how they interact with each other. Limitations of the theory Despite the huge advantages the theory has there are also some limitations that are important to mention. First of all, due to the theory’s complexity it is hard to conduct coherent research implementing PPCT model. Such research might be very hard to organize, for example, if we want to investigate cultural differences in development, or very expensive in terms of time and resources, if we want to conduct a longitudinal study, or even both. Moreover, (Bronfenbrenner, 1995) noticed that “applications of the model continue to reflect the particular biases and blind spots of each researcher’s root discipline,” that creates another obstacle on the way to new experiments and research implementing the bioecological theory. Secondly, there is an opinion that Bronfenbrenner’s theory does not pay enough attention to such construct as culture (Vizcarrondo Oppenheimer et al., 2017). In the 3 propositions of the theory Bronfenbrenner claims that differences in development vary systematically as a joint function of individual characteristics and environmental properties. That is, the culture is just another plausible value in the equation. Modern critiques of that proposition argue that the mentioned developmental function is not joint but nested and the culture creates the outer level of it and shapes possible interactions between inner systems. Conclusion Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory is one of the most important modern developmental theories due to its practical utility, broadness and history. It could serve as a glue for more narrow developmental theories that investigate cognition and social development. Bioecological paradigm addresses questions such as: 1) What cultural and individual differences influence the development of a child; 2) How should we change the context of the development to make proximal processes more effective; 3) How beliefs affect our behavior; 4) How change in social-economical status affects different generations of a family; and many others. To investigate them we could use PPCT model as it gives us the whole information needed to work with the bioecological theory and generate very utility recommendations for policy-makers, parents, teachers and ourselves. References Bronfenbrenner, U. (1974). Developmental Research, Public Policy, and the Ecology of Childhood. Child Development, https://doi.org/10.2307/1127743 4 45(1), 1–5. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1995). Developmental ecology through space and time: A future perspective. In P. Moen, G. H. Elder, & K. Lüscher (Eds.), Examining lives in context: Perspectives on the ecology of human development. (pp. 619–647). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10176-018 Bronfenbrenner, U., & Ceci, S. (1994). Natureuture reconceptualized in developmental perspective: A bioecological model. Psychological Review - PSYCHOL REV, 101, 568–586. https://doi.org/10.1037//0033-295X.101.4.568 De Haan, M., & Leuven, E. (2020). Head Start and the Distribution of LongTerm Education and Labor Market Outcomes. Journal of Labor Economics, 38(3), 727–765. https://doi.org/10.1086/706090 Eriksson, M., Ghazinour, M., & Hammarström, A. (2018). Different uses of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory in public mental health research: What is their value for guiding public mental health policy and practice? Social Theory & Health, 16. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41285-018-0065-6 Vizcarrondo Oppenheimer, M., Velez Agosto, N., & Soto, J. (2017). Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Theory Revision. 5
