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This essay will identify the ecological systems theory, by one of few living theorists Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917 – Current) who the student believes that the theorist expresses his own intuitions and sociological reflections. The ecological systems theory’s places an “…emphases on the adaptive mechanisms by which social equilibrium is maintained, seeing these as an inevitable basis for social existence…” (Marshall, p.287, 1998). Bronfenbrenner’s sociological thinking incorporates wider environmental issues, which impinges on an individual’s social action, such as contextual systems of relationships that form one’s environmental structure. These environmental layers, which view humans as existing in constant reciprocity with their immediate environment, consist of a number of social landscapes, which comprise of four multiple spheres, known as the Micro, Meso, Exo and Macro systems. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory of development stresses the importance of understanding not only the relationship between the organism and various environmental systems, but the relations between such systems themselves (Hetherington, Parke and Schmuckler, 2002). The preceding definition clearly points out that the ecological systems theory is affiliated with the structural-functional theory, whereby its sociological functional perspective is to show that social institutions do contribute to the maintenance and survival of an individual’s social reality. To break down the definition further, the structure part of the definition holds the belief that behaviour and social actions are structured. The theory for instance, explains how cultural values and norms differ from social structures within a particular environment. It relates with that of the structural-functional typology, which is popularized by one of major sociological figures known as Talcott Parsons (1902 –79). According to Marshall (1994), Parsons can be remembered for his mission to provide a fully integrated, abstract, and totalizing theory for sociology, and in addition generalizing concepts, which set out to describe the social system.
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