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Bronfenbrenner
Bronfenbrenner
Bronfenbrenner
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URIE BRONFENBRENNER
Cornell University
of a setting.
October
1976
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The Experiment as a
tems.
ER
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and activities.
The foregoing proposition is violated, for example, whenever research participants are placed in a
setting, or asked to engage in a task,
that is alien to the socioeconomic,
can
were never asked any quesethnic, or social milieu from which made," however, the intrusionteachers
espe- that might have shed light on
they come. The experiment must indeed be kept to a minimum, tions
how they viewed their pupils, or
also last long enough to approximate cially is an experiment of nature.
whether they held different attitudes
what happens in real life. Finally,
Contextual validity. The caution
the roles and activities in which the
or expectations toward youngsters
against placing research particiassigned to the experimental vs. the
participants are engaged should be pants in an ecologically ambiguous
control
group. (Also not examined
appropriate to the situation and situation applies not only to the
imin Seaver's study was the role of
have established social meaning formediate setting, but to the larger
time as an element of the setting.
the participants. From this point ofcontext from which the participants
the expectancy effect
view, it is noteworthy that the only are drawn. Specifically, if the Presumably,
locale
condition for which the laboratory into which the participants should
are have been greater when the
age in
interval between sibling pairs
turns out to be an ecologically validplaced, or the roles and activities
wasdo
shorter.) In consequence, as
setting is for studying the behaviorwhich they are asked to engage,
and development of researchers in not occur frequently in theirSeaver
own himself acknowledges, the
their native habitat.
are possibly confounded.
subculture, then, regardless offindings
how
common such experiences may Teacher
be in expectancy may not have
Preserving the integrity of the
been operative at all. Instead, the
the society at large, they become
setting. But what about the possitransmitter
of the message to the
ecologically invalid for the group
in
bility of bringing into the laboratory
younger
child
may have been the
question.
This
is
the
basis
for
the
people and pieces from the oustide
world, or reasonable facsimilies
severe criticism (Labov, 1967; older
Rie- sibling, and perhaps parents
thereof - so-called simulation experiments? Is not this a reasonable road
as well.
gel, 1975; Sroufe, 1970; Tulkin,
pants'
against studies of social class
andviews of the experimental
The failure to obtain the partici1972) that has been properly levied
more likely to evoke constructive very same persons may in fact be The exclusion of the subjective
from the domain of rigorous scienactivity in adults is indicated in functioning in their own milieu.
tific inquiry in all likelihood had its
This consideration brings us to our
Piliavin, Rodin, and Piliavin's
origins in the desire to eliminate the
third proposition.
study (1969) of reactions to persons
October
1976
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the former, from the very beginnings subject's performance, an ecologiof their discipline, were more ori- cal experiment cannot be solely
ented toward studying events in the behavioristic; provision must also
real world. It was the Chicago school be made for assessing each parof Cooley (1902), Mead (1934), and ticipant's definition of the situation, how he or she perceives the
in particular Thomas (Thomas,
setting
and its various elements.
1927; Thomas & Thomas, 1928;
This is the requirement of pheThomas & Znaniecki, 1927) that
nomenological analysis.
ER
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Beyond the dyad. As we have already noted, the classical psychoonly two parties-an experimenter,
ments in educational research. Havlogical experiment allows for only
identified solely, and apparently
two participants: E and S. In most
ing examined the properties that dis-still acceptably, as E; and, another
real-life settings, there are usually
tinguish the laboratory situation,
ment of setting analysis.
sion:
life settings. Accordingly, in educational research, their primary scientific value is for the exploration and
development of the parent. One suspects that among the most significant psychological changes that
take place in adulthood are those
as a System
dren.
ing social interactions and second-order effects in the N+2 systems, where they are in fact pres-
ent.
1976
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come to the point of diminishing returns in examining details of negligible significance for learning and de-
analogous person-in-single-context
model at the level of settings. Once
distinct from one another, linear, a second setting is introduced, the
and additive, in ecological experi-system becomes triadic and, accordments both antecedents and coningly, allows for the possibility of
sequences can be conceived as
second-order effects, now at the
rate variables that are treated as
ously.
ER
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ior of their parents varied systemati- terms, the error term employed for
cally with characteristics and activi- testing the main effect for culture
ties of the peer group, drawn pri- would have to be based not on varimarily from among the young per- ance among individuals but among
son's classmates in school. Conclassrooms. This requirement can be
versely, in two companion reaccomplished by conforming to the
searches, Condry and Siman (1974, condition set forth in the following
1976) report that the involvement of proposition.
children in informal peer groups was
less a function of positive attraction
than of perceived inattention and indifference in the home; peer-oriented
youngsters described their parents
as being less affectionate and less
firm in discipline. Taken together,
their findings reveal a reciprocal re-
systems.
claiming a difference when one does close match between the learning
1976
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11
disappearance of neighborhoods,
ment in a corollary.
Corollary 15a. When replication
of settings is minimal or completely precluded because of lim-
ited resources:
pretation of results.
barino (1976).
2) In the interpretation of findwhole subcontinents waiting for sciings, it should be explicitly acentific exploration - waiting beknowledged that the observed recause,
to date, there have been very
sults may be specific to features
few investigations of exo-system efof the particular examples employed, and hence are not gen- fects on learning processes.
eralizable to other settings of the One might challenge this assertion
same kind until the findings areon the grounds that studies of social
Ecological Experiments
A number of such changes have
served as the focus of investigation
relevant, but they fail to meet a other situations along the same line:
basic requirement of our ecological the arrival of a sibling; the move
model; namely, in educational re-
11.
settings, of treating as a main effect
a finding that is actually a higherIn fact, the properties of the reorder interaction specific to the parsearch model for investigating rela-
12
ER
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1976
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13
ment. Appreciation is expressed to the Foundation and its staff, in particular Orville G.
Brim and Heidi Sigal.
ER
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Bronfenbrenner, U. Toward an integrated New Society: The Weekly Review of Social 1951, 15, 423-444.
theory of personality. In R. R. Black & G. Issues, 1971, 2, 409-412.
MacLeod, R. B. The phenomenological
V. Remsey (Eds.), Perception, an approach Hales, D., Kennell, J. H., & Sosa, R. How
approach to social psychology. Psychologito personality. New York: Ronald Press, early is early contact? Defining the limits of cal Review, 1947, 54, 193-210.
1951.
the sensitive period. Report submitted to the
Mead, G. H. Mind, self, and society. ChiBronfenbrenner, U. Two worlds of child- FCD Program on the Ecology of Human
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1934.
hood: U.S. and U.S.S.R. New York: Russell
Moos, R. H. The human context: EnvironDevelopment. New York: Foundation for
Child Development, 1976.
mental determinants of behavior. New York:
Sage Foundation, 1970.
Bronfenbrenner, U. Experimental humanKatz, D. Die Erscheinungsweisen der
Wiley-Interscience, 1976.
Farben. Leipzig: Barth, 1911.
ecology: A reorientation to theory and reOlds, D. Cross-age tutoring and parent
search on socialization. Invited address at
Katz, D. Der Afbau der Farbwelt. Leipzig: involvement. Doctoral dissertation, Cornell
Barth, 1930.
University, 1976.
the meeting of the American Psychological
October
1976
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15