The Role of the
Environmental Factors in Human
Development
There are many more environmental factors
that influence human development than can be covered in this
textbook. At this point, we shall examine just one major
environmental theory. Bronfenbrenner (1979, 1989, 1994) has proposed
an ecological model of human development (Figure
4.1). In this context, the human
individual is considered to be at the center of a series of
concentric circles. The elements in each circle influence the circles
inside it. In this model, a person - initially consisting of his or
her biological makeup - is most directly influenced by the
immediate environment. For most children, this includes the
home, family, toys, peers, classrooms, and teachers. The immediate
environment is influenced by the social and economic context. For
example, the home environment will be influenced by the makeup of the
neighborhood - including such factors as the noise level and the lead
content of the soil. The family will be influenced by such factors as
whether a parent is able to take a job that permits frequent contact
with the child and the degree to which the parent feels oppressed or
happy at work. The social and economic context is influenced by the
cultural context - the beliefs, values, and guidelines that people in
a particular society tend to share.
Figure 4.1. Bronfenbrenner's
ecological model of human development.
In Bronfenbrenner's model, the person
interacts with these contexts as part of a system. That is,
the person acts on the context while the context acts on the person.
Indeed, to some extent, all the contexts interact with one another.
The following description of a child with an attention deficit
disorder offers an example of these interactions:
- Bill has a biological tendency to be
unable to focus his attention on key elements of complex
presentations. (This is a brief description of part of the child's
biological makeup - the inner circle in Figure 4.1. Let's assume
that he inherited this biological tendency - although other
explanations would also be possible.)
- Bill attends a school that cannot afford
special treatments for a child with this problem. He often behaves
disruptively, is frequently punished, and learns little from the
lessons conducted by the teacher. He feels miserable and
frustrated. The teacher also feels frustrated, and she shows this
both in her interactions with Bill and in her dealings with the
rest of the class. (This presents an interaction between the inner
circle and immediate environment, symbolized by the circle
surrounding the core.)
- Bill's father feels embarrassed by his
son's troubles in school. He treats Bill coldly because of this.
Bill responds by showing off in school in order to get his
father's attention. Bill gets in more trouble, and his father
becomes more embarrassed. (This is more interaction between the
two inner circles. In addition, Bill's father is being influenced
by social and cultural factors from the outer circles.)
- Bill's mother is more patient with
regard to Bill's troubles, but she has trouble dealing with her
husband's antagonism. Because of this distraction, she is often
less able to deal effectively with Bill. (Bill's mother is part of
his immediate environment. Bill's father is influencing Bill
indirectly, by influencing his mother.)
- Both parents have full-time jobs.
Sometimes the frustrations of their jobs make them less capable of
being patient with Bill. (Economic pressures dictate their need
for employment. Their culture may influence whether they need
these particular jobs. Their jobs influence their availability in
the immediate environment, and this availability influences Bill.
Note that frustration with Bill's behavior may interfere with and
cause additional stress on the job for both parents.)
- A teacher suggests that Bill may have a
medical problem. A doctor prescribes a medication, and Bill
becomes able to focus his attention where he wants to focus it.
(The medication has led to a temporary change in the innermost
circle. Now Bill is able to interact with his environment more
effectively.)
- As Bill grows older, his central nervous
system becomes more capable of dealing with distractions. He is
eventually able to stop using the medication and to focus
attention effectively without it. (Maturation has led to a more
permanent change in the innermost circle. Now Bill is able to
interact with his environment more effectively.)
This description envisions a happy ending.
Bill has developed into a happy adolescent. The ending could have
been less happy if any one factor had become extremely adverse or
through the cumulative effect of several factors. In addition,
interventions to help Bill could have occurred at different points.
For example, the school could have supplied a specialist to work with
Bill or someone could have trained the parents to deal with him more
effectively.
Bronfenbrenner (1986) has pointed out that
the family is of crucial importance in the development of children's
abilities. He has summarized family-related factors that influence
development and has shown that in most cases these factors are
influenced by other factors described in Figure
4.1. The following are examples of
some of the findings summarized by Bronfenbrenner and other
researchers:
- In two-parent families children whose
mothers work outside the home sometimes experience developmental
difficulties. However, this simple statement must be interpreted
with the following qualifications:
- Negative effects are much more likely
to occur for boys than for girls. In fact, girls often admire
their working mothers and apparently gain from this positive
perception.
- Children of mothers who are satisfied
with their jobs have far fewer problems than those whose
mothers are dissatisfied with their jobs (Hoffman, 1989). In
fact, Yarrow et al. (1962) found that happy child development
is related to the mother's satisfaction with her employment
status, whether or not she is working. (Nonworking mothers who
wanted to be working reported more problems than other
mothers.)
- The support systems available to the
mother make a huge difference. Support from husbands is
especially crucial. Children whose mothers work with the
support of their husbands actually do better (on the
average) than those whose mothers do not work outside the home
(Crockenberg, 1986a).
- In cases of extreme conditions - for
example teenage mothers living in conditions of extreme poverty
- the support system can actually add additional stress and
reduce the parent's effectiveness (Crockenberg, 1986b).
- The reason why the mother takes the
job makes a big difference. For example, children of mothers
who take jobs because of a breakup in the family (as through
death or divorce) tend to have substantial problems, whereas
children whose mothers take jobs because the work is fulfilling
have few problems (Hetherington, 1981).
- The age of the child when the mother
was working full time makes a difference. For example,
Bogenschneider & Steinberg (1994) found that both daughters
and sons of upper middle-class mothers who had worked during
their children's preschool years tended to be slightly
adversely affected by their mothers' employment, but only the
boys tended to be affected by their mothers'
contemporaneous employment.
- Active communication by the mother
with the child can cancel the negative impact of maternal
absence (Moorehouse, 1986).
- Parenting style has a
major impact on the development of children and adolescents. Diane
Baumrind (1973, 1978, 1980) has defined three main styles that
vary in their degree of parental control, parent-child
communications, parental maturity demands, and
nurturance.
- Authoritarian
parents emphasize obedience, even at the expense
of the child's autonomy. In general, they believe that children
should follow parental authority without question.
- Permissive
parents, on the other hand, give their children
almost unlimited freedom.
- Finally, authoritative
parents are both warm and demanding. They try to guide
their children's behavior into productive patterns, but they do
this primarily through persuasion rather than parental decree.
They state their expectations clearly, tell their children the
reasons behind these expectations, and express a belief that
these expectations will be met.
- Dornbusch (1987) has described a
fourth style - inconsistent. Both researchers
found that for every outcome they examined, children whose
parents employed authoritative parenting styles
displayed more desirable traits than those whose parents used
the other styles. For example, they are likely to be more
independent, self-assertive, cooperative, and
achievement-oriented. Note that many of the problems that
interfere with family effectiveness (e.g., word status of
mothers) often have their impact by forcing parents into either
an authoritarian or permissive rather than authoritative
parenting style, which requires greater effort on the part of
the parents. (See, for example, Kohn, 1969.) Parenting style is
a much stronger predictor of academic success than parent
education, ethnicity, or family structure (Dornbusch,
1987).
- Latchkey children (that
is, children who return home after school to a house in which no
parent is present) experience more difficulties in development
than children whose parents are able to be there to greet them
when they return from school. For example, latchkey children, in
general, are more likely to succumb to peer pressure to engage in
antisocial behaviors. However, this simple statement must be
interpreted with the following qualifications (Steinberg,
1986):
- Latchkey children whose parents know
their whereabouts are less susceptible to peer pressure than
those whose parents do not know their whereabouts.
- Latchkey children who go to a
friend's house are less susceptible to peer pressure than those
who can be described as "hanging out" after school.
- Latchkey children whose parents
employ an authoritative style of parenting are less susceptible
to peer pressure than those whose parents employ either a
permissive or an authoritarian style.
- Parental divorce often
disrupts a child's normal development. The following are just a
sample of the many qualifications that must accompany this
statement:
- The negative impact is likely to be
the greatest about a year after the separation (Hetherington,
1981).
- A divorce that ends the conflict
between parents is actually better for the children than a
continuation of a marriage involving frequent conflict
(Hetherington & Parke, 1979). This advantage is negated if
the conflict persists after the divorce.
- Reduced negative conflict and
continued contact with the non-custodial parent greatly reduces
the possible negative impact of divorce on children (Kline et
al, 1989).
The statements in the preceding list are
merely examples of research findings. An important caveat is
that much of the preceding research was based on white, middle-class
families, and there may be cultural or social dynamics that would
lead to different expectations in other groups.
As chapter 9 will stress, while it is useful
to make initial plans based on research like that presented here,
individuals vary considerably in the way they respond to
environmental factors. The family is a complex, dynamic source of
influence on a child's development. Many factors interact to
determine the impact of the family on the child's development. For
example, item 1 in the preceding list states that children in
two-parent families whose mothers work outside the home sometimes
experience developmental difficulties. This is an accurate statement,
but items 1a through 1g qualify that statement. Item 1g states that
active communication by the mother with the child can cancel the
negative impact of maternal absence. In many families, this level of
active communication can be difficult to achieve, because the mother
may be exhausted from working at a difficult, low-paying job that she
dislikes. In other families, this active communication may be easy to
attain, because the mother works at a job that is interesting and
where her co-workers discuss child-rearing with her and because she
has a husband who shares household and child-rearing
responsibilities. However, even these qualifications need to be
qualified: for example, the hard-working and exhausted mother may
have support from her religious beliefs or from her friends that
enables her to communicate effectively with her child in spite of the
obstacles.
The other factors shown in Figure
4.1 are likewise complex. Thus,
while it is important for educators to know the general ways in which
the family and other environmental factors can influence children, it
is more important to get to know the individual child (and the
individual family) in order to plan instruction as effectively as
possible for the child.
The family influences the child's school
life through what many writers have called the curriculum of the
home, which "predicts academic learning twice as well as the
socioeconomic status of the families. This curriculum includes
informed parent/child conversations about everyday events,
encouragement and discussion of leisure reading, monitoring and joint
analysis of televiewing, deferral of immediate gratifications to
accomplish long-term goals, expressions of affection and interest in
children's academic and personal growth..." (Walberg, 1984, p. 400).
The curriculum of the home helps the child develop habits and
attitudes that make the child ready for school instruction. This
process is diagrammed in Figure 4.2.
Figure 4.2. How the curriculum
of the home influences children's learning (based on Redding,
1992).
Since the family exerts such a powerful
influence on a child's development, it is important for educators to
enlist the cooperation of the parents and guardians of their
students. Epstein (1989) suggests several ways in which family
structures can support school-related activities. In addition,
Epstein (1986) points out that teacher activities largely determine
whether parents are likely to make substantial contributions to their
children's school work. The What
Parents Can Do guidelines at the
end of chapters in this book suggest ways in which teachers can
advise parents and others to apply sound psychological principles in
furthering the education of their children. In addition, it is
important to note that sometimes when families are dysfunctional,
schools can provide a safe and nurturing environment to protect
children from negative factors in their environment and to compensate
for contributions that the child's family may be unable to make
(Lynch & Cicchetti, 1992).
Online
Links:
Environmental Effects on Human Development
How Many Environments Does a Child
Have? by Judith Rich Harris.
http://www.edletter.org/past/issues/1999-mj/environments.shtml
This author argues that too much
emphasis has been placed on the parents and not enough on the
other people in the child's life--teachers, for instance. Too much
attention has been paid to the home and not enough to the child's
other environments.
A Parent's Influence Is Peerless
by
Jerome Kagan.
http://www.edletter.org/past/issues/1998-nd/parents.shtml
This article is a bit of a rebuttal
to the preceding article by Judith Rich Harris. Kagan argues for
the extreme importance of parental influences on children.
Child Experts Doubt Theory Behind Book
Questioning Parents' Influence by Linda Jacobson.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/1998/04parent.h18
More discussion of the
preceding article by Judith Rich Harris.
Language-Rich Home and School
Environments Are Key to Reading Success by Leon Lynn.
http://www.edletter.org/past/issues/1997-ja/language.shtml
Children learn some of their most
important reading lessons at the dinner table, according to a
groundbreaking study.
Do Parents Matter? Judith Rich Harris and
Child Development by Malcolm Gladwell.
http://www.gladwell.com/1998_08_17_a_harris.htm
This is an article from The New
Yorker about Judith Rich Harris, whose writings on child
development took the revolutionary position that peers are more
important than parents in the development of a child's
character.
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