ABSTRACT
It is impossible to fully understand individual students, families, classrooms, and school communities without understanding their interaction with larger environments and systems. In his groundbreaking work on human ecology, the developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner (1979) emphasized the interconnectedness of individual and environmental influences in human development. Moving beyond the debate of the relative impact of nature versus nurture, his bioecological systems theory posited that child development occurs within the context of progressively more complex reciprocal interactions with the environment. From this perspective environment is the context for development. Its influence must be considered and understood. However it is not the sole determinant of development.
