ABSTRACT
This brief section reviews the important features of systems, groups of components that function or operate together. In systems, each component tends to affect each of the others, and changes in any one element change the functioning of each of the others. The author distinguishes between mechanical systems, designed to function optimally in a consist way, and living or organic systems, in which components change over time, requiring constant adaptation of the whole, and changing the function of the entire system. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory represents a living system, because each developing person changes over time, as does the social ecosystem the members of the system inhabit and create. In Bronfenbrenner’s model, each of the subsystems includes different components related to each other in different ways.
