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reclaiming children and youth 15:3 fall 2006 pp. 162–166
162
voices of pioneers
The Vision of Urie Bronfenbrenner:
Adults Who Are Crazy About Kids
Larry K. Brendtro
Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) was a pioneer in studying the behavior of children in their natural life
space of family, school, peer group, and community. His concept of the ecology of human development is
transforming practice for effective work with children and youth. Bronfenbrenner’s research highlights
the power of human relationships to propel children on pathways to problematic or positive life outcomes.
Profile of a
Pioneer
World-renowned child psy-
chologist Urie Bronfenbrenner
was Professor Emeritus of
Human Development and
Psychology at Cornell
University at the time of his
death September 26, 2005 at
age 88. He was the author, co-
author, or editor of more than
300 articles and chapters and 14 books exploring the
field he created, the ecology of human development.
Outside of his profession, he is best known as co-
founder of the Head Start program which has
touched millions of children of poverty.
Urie Bronfenbrenner was born in Moscow, Russia, on
April 29, 1917, and came to the United States with his
family at age six. His father was a physician in a
New York institution for the developmentally dis-
abled. Young Urie was deeply influenced by seeing
his father's frustration when the juvenile courts con-
signed healthy children to the institution. This early
interest would lead him to become a scholar on the
child and family in various cultures (Bronfenbrenner,
1970). Urie and his wife of 63 years had ample oppor-
tunity to put these principles into practice as parents
of six children.
After earning a doctorate from the University of
Michigan in 1942 at the age of 25, Urie entered the
army. He was assigned to a secret hideout near
Washington, DC. With some of the great psycholog-
ical minds in the world, including Kurt Lewin, Urie
evaluated candidates for secret duty.1In 1948, he
joined the faculty of Cornell where he would serve
for nearly six decades. In 1993, he was honored by
the American Psychological Association as one of the
world’s most distinguished scientists, without peer
in the ability to put theory into practice. His life
work embodied the wisdom of his early mentor,
Lewin, who believed that “Nothing is as practical as
a good theory.”
A former student2gave this account of
Bronfenbrenner’s profound commitment to teaching
which he called “doing God’s work.” The student
was in the professor’s office when they were inter-
rupted by a phone call. After greeting the caller with
typical enthusiasm, Urie promptly said, “I'm sorry,
but I'll have to call you back. I'm meeting with a stu-
dent.” He hung the phone up and remarked, “Walter
Mondale…. What a wonderful man.” Urie had just
told the vice president of the United States that an
appointment with a pupil takes precedence over a
phone call from the powerful (Steinberg, 2005).
It is said that before Bronfenbrenner, psychologists,
sociologists, educators, anthropologists, and other
Urie
Bronfenbrenner
volume 15, number 3 fall 2006 163
specialists all studied narrow aspects of the child’s
world. Bronfenbrenner (1979) tied all of these
together to create a new field of study, the ecology of
human development. His most basic belief states in
scientific terms how trusting bonds with children
are the most powerful force in positive youth devel-
opment:
Proposition 1: In order to develop—intellec-
tually, emotionally, socially, and morally—a
child requires participation in progressively
more complex reciprocal activity, on a regu-
lar basis over an extended period in the
child's life, with one or more persons with
whom the child develops a strong, mutual,
irrational, emotional attachment and who
is committed to the child's well-being
and development, preferably for life.
(Bronfenbrenner, 1991, p. 2)
Urie translated this principle into simple, powerful
terms: “Every child needs at least one adult who is
irrationally crazy about him or her.” To help meet a
child’s needs, the primary caregiver should also
have the support of another adult, such as a spouse
or grandparent. But in modern society, this three-
way alliance has been disrupted by solo parenting
and the loss of extended families.
Bronfenbrenner’s life work is summarized in Making
Human Beings Human (2005) which he hoped would
shape research, policy, and practice. He describes
how the necessary supports to rearing healthy chil-
dren break down amidst the chaos and hectic pace of
modern society. Youth show the signs of this break-
down in alienation, apathy, rebellion, delinquency,
and violence. Without a sense of belonging rooted in
a secure caring bond, children cannot thrive and
reach their full potential.
Bronfenbrenner had a particular concern with
studying factors that contributed to problem behav-
ior in youth. He was fascinated with how easily
experimenters in a summer camp were able to create
either cooperative groups or war-like gangs of
eleven-year-old boys (Sherif et al., 1961).
Bronfenbrenner (2005) proposed a two-part solution
to problems of alienation and anti-social behavior:
• Involve adults directly in the life space of chil-
dren, rather than warehousing students in stock-
ade schools or letting peer groups dominate youth
development.
• Involve youth in finding solutions to problems,
rather than having them grow up disengaged
from the community without ever making contri-
butions to others.
These principles became the basis of ecological mod-
els of education and treatment for troubled and trou-
bling children (Hobbs, 1982; Brendtro & Ness, 1983).
Circles of Influence
Positive youth development requires caring parents,
supportive teachers, and positive peers. In simpler
cultures, the entire community shared in socializa-
tion of the young. But today, many youth are dis-
connected from their elders and learn values and
behaviors from marginal peer groups (Neufeld &
Maté, 2005).
Children reared in disrupted ecologies experience a
host of emotional and behavioral problems. But
Bronfenbrenner opposed diagnosing such problems
as pathology or disease in the youth. Instead,
he diagnosed DIS-EASE in the ecology. The accom-
panying figure on page 164 contrasts a healthy and
a high-risk ecology.
Bronfenbrenner mapped the key circles of influence
that surround each child (Phelan, 2004). The most
powerful circles make up the immediate life space of
family, school, and peer group. Further, some chil-
dren are involved in significant neighborhood
connections such as work, church, youth clubs, and
formal or informal mentoring. Surrounding these
circles of influence are broader cultural, economic,
and political forces.3
A child’s behavior reflects transactions within these
immediate circles of influence. One can only gain an
accurate understanding of a child by attending to
transactions within the family, school, peer group,
and neighborhood. This view challenges narrow
approaches to assessment instruments which target
the child as the problem. From the ecological per-
spective, it is pseudoscience to assume that an
observer can tick off checklists of isolated behaviors
or traits of the child and feed such data into a com-
puter to profile a child’s personality.
The different spheres of influence in the child’s world
also impact one another. Ideally, the family, school,
and peer group all work in harmony to provide pos-
itive support and instill solid values. But when they
operate in conflict, this “dis-ease” translates into dis-
tress for the child. This is seen when teachers under-
mine parental values, parents undercut teachers, and
peer values sabotage those of elders.
Behavior is not an isolated act but a reciprocal trans-
action with others in a child’s life space. In the fami-
ly, a parent influences a child, but the child also
influences the parent. Once a child enters school, the
teacher impacts the student, but the student also has
an effect on teacher behavior. By adolescence, the
peer group can rival and sometimes surpass the
family and school as an agent of influence.
The ecology of childhood is not static but rather
changes over time. This calls for a longitudinal per-
spective on growth and development. As they
mature, children face new challenges. Predictable
developmental milestones include normal life tran-
sitions such as starting school or getting a job, but
many developmental challenges result from ran-
dom, unplanned events. These can be stressful, like
divorce of parents, or supportive, like finding a men-
tor. Past behavior problems need not predict future
adjustment. As the child’s ecology changes, so does
the child’s fate (Lewis, 1997).
Biological factors are also at play in development,
such as irritable temperament or medical problems.
Since stress is both psychological and biological, any
complete theory of behavior must be bio-ecological
in scope (Bronfenbrenner, 2005). For example, we
now know much more about how a child’s normal
or delayed brain development determines how a
child copes with challenge and stress. We are also
aware of how relationship trauma from earlier
disruptions in attachment or maltreatment can
influence ongoing emotional and behavioral
development.
Practical Studies of Children
Bronfenbrenner (1976) strongly criticized much tra-
ditional psychological research as the study of iso-
lated behavior in artificial situations for a very short
time period. He scoffed at the notion that “solid
research” was limited to laboratory studies, statisti-
cal analyses, and random assignments to controlled
conditions. Just because data is statistically signifi-
cant does not mean it is useful or relevant to prac-
tice. A narrow focus on microbehaviors obscures the
real meaning of behavior. Practical studies of chil-
dren are heuristic: they explore how a child experi-
ences and interprets his or her world.
Popular diagnostic schemes slap deviance labels like
“disruptive behavior disorder” on children experi-
encing problems. Bronfenbrenner argued that
conflict is a performance which requires multiple
actors. He described a mirror-image process which
164 reclaiming children and youth
volume 15, number 3 fall 2006 165
operates at interpersonal to international levels
(Bronfenbrenner, 1961). Once one becomes locked in
conflict with a perceived enemy, it is excessively dif-
ficult to empathize with the view of the other. The
logical brain is overwhelmed by primitive survival
impulses. The adversary is seen as an evil aggressor,
while the self, of course, is the noble victim. This
image is so intense that it overrides reason and con-
science; one justifies attempts to punish and attack,
even when this makes the situation worse. Hostility
fuels hostility, something Nick Long (1995) calls the
“conflict cycle.” Brain research now shows that this
tendency to imitate others is programmed in the
brain’s “mirror neurons” (Dobbs, 2006).
Bronfenbrenner sought to elevate practical studies of
children in their life space to the highest levels of sci-
ence. He relabeled traditional experimental studies
as contrived research. He also considered narrow
animal-based learning models as overly simplistic
when applied to humans. While welcoming diverse
methods of inquiry, Bronfenbrenner tipped the bal-
ance of the research agenda toward naturalistic
studies. The goal was to study a child’s natural rela-
tionships under natural conditions.
By its very nature, ecological theory is wide-ranging
and multi-faceted. This could lead one to be over-
whelmed by complexity and confusion. Although it
is impossible to attend to every variable in the
environment, attempts are made to scan the ecology
for factors of most importance (Morse, 1985).
Bronfenbrenner targeted a laser on areas that most
profoundly affect healthy development. These are
the immediate circles of influence of family, peers,
and school. Thus, in assessing a child’s ecology and
designing positive interventions, these questions are
foremost:
1) What are the transactions of the child with family,
peers, and school?
2) Does this circle of influence create stress or offer
support for the child?
When the ecology is in balance, children live in har-
mony with self and others. But if the ecology is dis-
rupted or in tension, the child experiences conflict
and maladjustment.
The most powerful interventions with children and
youth are those that seek to build a supportive ecol-
ogy around a child. Certainly it is valid to concern
oneself with broader social policies, but the most
direct impact is on the children in his or her imme-
diate sphere of influence. Discouragement from
destructive forces in the broader society cannot take
such priority that it hides the powerful influence one
can wield in the life of a child.
Bronfenbrenner invested great personal energy and
political skill in seeking to change cultural values,
economic systems, and public policies that are
antagonistic to positive youth development. His eco-
logical research sparked the Head Start movement
for disadvantaged children. His advocacy before the
United Nations forged international children’s poli-
cy. His ecological model transformed the helping
professions.
Urie Bronfenbrenner was a deeply compassionate
man committed to the belief that there are no dis-
posable children (Brendtro, Ness, & Mitchell, 2005).
His vision was rooted in boyhood memories of his
father struggling to reclaim cast-off troubled chil-
dren in an institution. For all of his fame, the spirit of
this pioneer is his enduring epitaph: Every child needs
at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him
or her.
Larry K. Brendtro, PhD, is founder of Reclaiming Youth
International and dean of research at Starr Commonwealth,
Albion, Michigan. This series on Voices of Pioneers is part of an
ongoing project at Starr Commonwealth to research and reclaim
the wisdom of pioneers in work with children and youth. The
author can be contacted by e-mail: courage@reclaiming.com
REFERENCES
Brendtro, L., Ness, A., & Mitchell, M. (2005). No disposable kids.
Bloomington, IN: National Educational Service.
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Bronfenbrenner, U. (1961). The mirror image in Soviet-American rela-
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17(3), 45-56.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1970). Two worlds of childhood: US & USSR. New
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Bronfenbrenner, U. (1976). The experimental ecology of education.
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NOTES
1Under the leadership of Henry A. Murray of Harvard, his colleagues
included Edward C. Tolman, David Levy, Theodore Newcomb, and
Kurt Lewin (Bronfenbrenner, 2005).
2The student was Laurence Steinberg of Temple University.
3Bronfenbrenner referred to the immediate environments of family,
school, peers, and neighborhood as a child’s microsystem. The inter-
connection of these environments is the mesosystem. Surrounding
these spheres were increasingly broader circles of community influ-
ence called the exosytem, and, finally, the cultural and societal forces
of the macrosystem. In designing restorative interventions for indi-
vidual children, the focus is usually on relationships in the
microsytem and mesosystem. Research suggests that the more imme-
diate the system, the greater its impact on development. Thus, while
poverty can be a negative force in development, the immediate forces
in a particular child’s family, school, peer group, and neighborhood
exert greatest influence.
166 reclaiming children and youth
“Big-T Terrorism”
By Caleb W.
Augsburg Academy, St. Paul, MN.
Used with permission.
