What is a mesosystem in child development

Week 4 - Discussion

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21 replies.

Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses. Refer to the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric under the Settings icon above for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.

Bullying

Prior to completing this discussion, please read chapter 15 in the textbook, read the Shetgiri et. al (2012) article, review the information from chapter 1 about Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological theory, and review any relevant Instructor Guidance. Your post must be a minimum of 300 words and you must cite all your sources.

Utilize Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory to address the topic of motivations for and influences on bullying.

Using each of the five systems in Bronfenbrenner’s theory, identify and describe how a child’s environment might pre-dispose him or her to bully.

For example, within a person’s microsystem are the parents. How might parents be an influencing factor on whether or not a child is prone to bullying?

Find and report (with proper citation) one current statistic on the factors influencing school bullying behaviors.

Does this statistic seem to follow the same trend supported by Bronfenbrenner’s theory? If not, explain how it challenges the theory.

Then, reflect on friendships in childhood and adolescence and address the positive and negative influences that they can have on bullying behaviors.

Finally, utilize problem-solving techniques in exploring developmental issues, grounded in child development, in order to provide one unique solution to reduce or completely end bullying.

Guided Response: Respond to at least two peers. In your responses, consider and comment on the probability and logistics of your classmate’s bullying solution. Provide additional unique insights to either the causes or prevention of bullying behaviors based on information from the textbook or the Shetgiri et. al. (2012) article, and/or ask further questions about their response to encourage them to think of different points-of-view and reflect on their statements in another way. Continue to monitor this discussion through 5:00 p.m. (Mountain Time) on Day 7 of this week. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses.

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Ashley Long

Ashley Long

Tuesday

May 8 at 3:57pm

Manage Discussion Entry

Per Mossler (2014), American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory consists of five systems, The microsystem, mesosystem, ecosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. In this discussion, I will determine how a child’s environment can impact the chances of him/her getting bullied using Bronfenbrenner’s theory.

Per Mossler (2014), Microsystem is the system that directly impacts a child through parents, school, peers, and religion. (Parents & school) Parents unknowingly can become a main key as to why their child is bullied. Things like, what mom and dad do for occupations may result in a child being made fun of for it. For example, a child could be made fun of because his or her father may be the school janitor, or his or her mother could be the cafeteria cook. There is always room for criticism in a school setting.

Per Mossler (2014), The Mesosystem involves interaction of the child with his/her parents, peers, and school. A child being prone to bullying in this system could result from relationships with people in their surroundings. If a child has a turbulent relationship with his or her parents, this can result in communication skills deemed improper as the child could be aggressive and fall victim to being made fun of in school for it. In the worst scenario of a situation like this, the child his/herself could become the bully. If a child is not corrected at home when saying something foul or having bad behavior, his/her peers may even choose to stay away as that child just seems “weird” or out of place in the educational environment.

Per Mossler (2014), The exosystem is a system based off the child’s community and socioeconomical variables and the impacts it has on a child’s situation indirectly impacting him/her. This can make the child prone to bullying due to his or her family’s economic situation. For example, we could have a child who lives with her single mother who was laid off last year and has had a difficulty obtaining new employment. Because of mom’s financial situation, she may rely on second hand stores or “hand-me downs” for her daughter’s clothes. Her classmates may find the things she wears amusing and poke fun of her for it, this would beat a girl’s self-esteem.

Per Mossler (2014), Macrosystem is the system that involves the law, tradition, and customs that influence the child. Traditions can be a factor that results in the child falling victim to bullying. In this system, things like race and religion and practices involving the child could have a negative impact if he/she is the minority in their place of residence and in school settings. For example, a female child who practices Islamic religions may be seen wearing a hijab (headscarf). She may become bullied for doing so as it is not recognized that she is not making a fashion statement, rather following the practices that relate to the Islamic religion.

Per Mossler (2014), Chrono system is the system that can be impacted by the other four systems of Bronfenbrenner’s theory. Events such as historical and social contexts throughout the child’s life. Events such as the death of a loved one, the birth of a sibling, divorce, or even relocating to a foreign area are examples of this system. For example, there is a boy who moved from India to the United States as his father is a scientific researcher who was needed in the U.S. He begins his first day of school in an environment very unfamiliar to him He can be prone to bullying as his new peers’ poke fun at the way he dresses, the way he speaks (possible language barrier), even down to the Kashmiri Dum Aloo (vegetarian delicacy) he is eating for lunch. Depending on the area of the U.S. children are unfamiliar with Indian culture and may view it as taboo.

Per Espelage (2014), Bronfenbrenner’s theory is used to better understand how individual characteristic of children interact with the systems to focus on and try to prevent bullying and peer victimization. Throughout her article, Dorothy Espelage goes over and highlights how each system of Bronfenbrenner’s theory can contribute to the factors that cause bullying but most importantly, she explains how over time, these systems are constantly revolutionizing with fashion trends, communication trends like social media, and the openness of one’s sexuality and preferences. According to the National Bullying Prevention Center, more than one out of five students reported be bullied. In the National Center for Education Statistics 2014-2015 report for students ages 12-18 who reported bullying, 292,400 out of 763,200 students reported being bullied. 21.6 percent of those who reported were Latino, 23.2 percent were living in low-income situations, and 20.2 percent practice foreign religion.

These statistics coincide with Bronfenbrenner’s theory as each stage or more than one stage highlights these factors that contributes to the child’s development and upbringing. Childhood friendships can positively affect bullying behaviors if that friend corrects the negative behavior. It can also have a negative impact as children are easily influenced and do what they can to fit in, even if that means doing so at another child’s expense.

One way that bullying can be prevented and possibly completely ended is by familiarizing one’s self with the situation of the child being bullied. Trying to understand what is going on with him or her can give teachers, parents and other authority figures a chance to protect them as they know what to look for. More child welfare programs could be intensified in availability for children who could benefit from their resources. An important factor in preventing these situations is recognizing the signs of neglect and abuse in a child and acting on them as quickly as possible.

References:

Espelage, D. L. (2014). Ecological Theory: Preventing Youth Bullying, Aggression, and Victimization. Theory Into Practice, 53(4), 257-264. doi:10.1080/00405841.2014.947216

National Bullying Prevention Center: bullying statistics (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). http://www.pacer.org/bullying/resources/stats.asp. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2017/2017015.pdf.

Mossler, R. (2014). Child and adolescent development (2nd ed.). [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/