Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model of Social Development IS the foundation of my rhetoric!
(below I bold keywords that argue my study topic: how do Becky and I connect)
“The ecology of human development involves the scientific study of the progressive mutual accommodation between an active, growing human being and the changing properties of the immediate settings in which the developing person lives, as this process is affected by relations between these settings, and by the larger contexts in which the settings are embedded. “(Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 21)
“Learning and development are facilitated by the participation of the developing person in progressively more complex patterns of reciprocal activity with someone with whom that person has developed a strong and enduring emotional attachment, and when the balance of power gradually shifts in favor of the developing person.”
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 60)
Here is literature support to satisfy Munby’s criteria for ethical research practices in my work:
“It seems to me that American researchers are constantly seeking to
explain how the child came to be what he is; we in the U.S.S.R. are
trying to discover not how the child came to be what he is, but how
he can become what he not yet is. (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 40) The
principle becomes operationalized as a transforming experiment, formally defined as follows:
A transforming experiment involves the systematic alteration and restructuring of existing ecological systems in ways that challenge the forms of social organization, belief systems, and life styles prevailing in a particular culture or subculture.”
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 41)
What an amazing insight into the differences between American and Soviet approaches to developmental psychology! I inherited the latter epistemology because I was born and raised in the USSR, and adopted the second because I spent years living (and studying psychology) in the States. No wonder I get so conflicted when I reflect on the influence of my upbringing in the person and researcher that I am today!
Here is that Munby’s “What’s the point? [of research]” bit in the discourse on vigor, ethics, and rhetoric again.