CHAPTER ONE: ORIENTATION AND OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
3.2 Theoretical framework
3.2.2 Brofenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of child development is useful in examining in detail the relevant social context in this study. This model serves as a framework that examines interrelated factors that contribute to
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students’ failure. It makes it possible in this qualitative study to analyse effectively the contributing factors, ‘at risk’ students’ experiences and their relationship with their environment. In order to understand the context of
‘at risk’ students, this Ecosystemic model was used to guide and explain the literature and the results of the study since if focuses on factors in the immediate environment of the individual students’ experiences and interaction, amongst other factors.
Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological theory defines five types of systems which contain roles, norms and rules that shape the development of the child. The systems include a microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem. The microsystem is the family, classroom, neighbourhood or systems in the immediate environment in which a person is operating; in this case it refers to family, lecture rooms and university community. The mesosystem is an interaction of two microsystems, such as the connection between a child’s home and school or between church and home and in this case it refers to the student’s home and university. It also refers to relations between microsystems or connections between contexts. Examples are the relation of family experiences to school experiences, school experiences to church experiences, and family experiences to peer experiences. It is also possible that children, who have been rejected by their parents, may have difficulty developing positive relations with teachers (Maher, 2007:8). The exosystem is an environment in which an individual is indirectly involved in and is external to his experience, yet it affects him anyway; for example, when a student’s parent’s workplace requires lot of travelling and the father or the mother becomes an absent parent. The absence of the parent at home creates some challenges to parental roles and this might increase conflict with the spouse which in turn affects the children. Parental absence might affect communication at home with children or spouse and links between a social setting in which the individual does not have an active role in the individual's immediate context. The macrosystem is the larger cultural context.
The cultural context includes developing and industrialized countries, socio-economic status, poverty and ethnicity. It also helps explain depression in many students, with cultural values moving more towards technology oriented thinking. For example where institutions depend highly on computers to communicate with students, we tend to have little time to talk and listen to our students. This has a great impact on students from disadvantaged backgrounds who are still in a transition stage. A student, its parent, its higher institution, and its parent's workplace are all part of a larger cultural context. Members of a cultural group share a common identity, heritage and values. The macrosystem evolves over time, because each successive generation may change this, leading to their development in a unique macrosystem. Chronosystems encompass developmental time-frames, pertaining to environmental events and transitions over the life course, family structure, socioeconomic status, living conditions as well as socio-historical circumstances (Bronfenbrenner, 1995). These environmental events and transitions could, for example, be the transition from high school to university, living
away from home etc. For the purpose of this study, the chronosystem refers to multiple physical, social and cultural dimensions that can influence student’s academic progress. Swart and Pettipher (2005) explain that the way individuals perceive their circumstances influences the way they respond to their human and physical contexts. These systems helped me in explaining the factors that affect students’ development and progress towards achieving their undergraduate qualification. In terms of Bronfenbrenner’s theory, children are located at the centre of their nested structures, therefore they are endlessly affected in one way or another by changes that occur in the environment that surrounds them (Howard & Johnson, 2000), therefore, in understanding the factors that impact on a student’s success, it was imperative to examine the various factors in the systems as they conformed to the aims of the study.
Figure 2, which shows Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model
The use of Brofenbrenner’s theory in this study will provide clarity on:
•How family, economy and political structures influence the development of a child into adulthood.
•How the child development, the interaction within his/her own environment becomes more complex and how this complexity arise as the child’s physical and cognitive structures grow and mature.
•How Ecological Systems Theory attempts to explain the differences in each individual’s knowledge, development and competencies through the support, guidance and structure of the society in which each lives.
• How all factors are intertwined and impact the development cycle.
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•How educators can use this model to asses problems in a student’s life and aid in the rebalancing of a students’
environment to begin to plan for necessary intervention.
In this present study, the Brofenbrenner’s theory will be used as a theoretical underpinning to fully understand the ‘at- risk’ students. This will be done by seeking to have a holistic understanding of factors affecting their performance from family, peer, teaching approaches, social, economic and any other related factors. As Brofenbrenner advocated for the understanding of an individual by considering the interrelatedness of factors affecting the individual, the same will be applied to ‘at- risk’ students. Brofenbrenner’s (1979;2005) ecological model of child development is applicable in inspecting in detail the relevant social context of this study. The Social Ecological Model, also called the Social Ecological Perspective, is a framework that observes the multiple effects and interconnectedness of social elements in an environment. In a qualitative study, this makes it possible for numerous contexts involving people and the environment and influences on other to be effectively analysed. Due to the complexity and various factors that are involved in this study, this ecological model seems to be an appropriate lens to explain factors that lead to students becoming át- risk’ of academic failure and how they experience intervention support. It is crucial to understand the interactions of these systems as this is the key to understanding how a child develops and what factors lead to the failure; and these factors inform the type of intervention support system needed.