Question

Offer three examples of how culture and socialization interact with ecosystems?

Answer 1

Bronfenbrenner's ecological model suggests that socialization occurs in contexts and the child is in the center of concentric circles which are modelled by the layers of these contexts (Figure 2). The child is not a passive recipient in this process; he or she interacts directly with the people of the microsystem. So, let’s see the layers of the contexts which influence the child’s socialization (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

Figure 2. Ecological model of Bronfenbrenner (Source: Author’s own figure)

The microsystem is the environment where the child lives, and is made up by the people and institutions with whom the child interacts (for example family members, school teachers, peers, neighbours). The microsystem is set in the mesosystem layer which relates to the interactions of the people in the microsystem (as parents interact with each other or neighbours interact with each other). Exosystem is the next and it is the broader community in which the child lives (as an example the extended family, parents’ workplaces, family friends, community health institutions and social welfare services). The child doesn’t have any direct interaction with them, but these systems affect the child’s socialization. An example of how the exosystem influences the child’s life is that the changes in the parents’ workplace impact their child’s life, too (e.g. the child has to go to another school because the other one was too far away). Finally, the outmost layer is the macrosystem, which contains the values, rules, attitudes, ideologies of a certain culture or subculture which affects the socialization of the child. Another important factor in the ecological model is the passage of time, which means that contexts change as the child grows; consequently other people and institutions will be determinant for the child.

Super and Harkness (1994) “developmental niche” is a theoretical framework for understanding how cultures structure the children’s development and daily activities. The child is in the focus of this model which contains three interacting subsystems: and it arises from the studies of children’s behaviours in different cultures. The three subsystems are:

1. physical and social setting in which the child lives (e.g. relationship and objects of the setting influence the activities of the child)

2. customs and practice of child rearing

3. psychology of caretakers (e.g. values, beliefs, parental ethnotheories about children’s needs and parenting which differ in the different cultures). These three subsystems operate together as a powerful system and the outside forces influence the niche through any of the three subsystems. The developmental niche is an open system, for example an economic crisis may lead to new physical settings for children. The change of the “good parenting concept” may affect the parents’ theories about child rearing and then influence their practices, customs and it activates changes in the settings of the child too. The three subsystems operate a process of mutual adaptation with the individual child. Socialization research investigates how the child adapt to the environment, but the developmental niche focuses on how the features of a certain child influence the parents and other people in the niche and affect the cultural expectations too. The model also shows the importance of regularity provided by the culture in the children’s development. A stable cultural environment, “contemporary redundancy” is necessary for learning the values and for acquiring skills.