Ecological Systems Theory

Ecological systems theory is the body of theoretical work developed by the psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner across his career to explain human development. Bronfenbrenner set out the theory's foundations in a major statement published in American Psychologist, then developed it further in his most cited book, The Ecology of Human Development, and later still in The Bioecological Model of Human Development. The theory's central contribution was to examine systematically how the surrounding context shapes developmental processes, and as it evolved it placed growing emphasis on the developing person as an active agent in their own development rather than treating fixed social categories such as gender or ethnicity as sufficient explanations on their own.