How is culture acquired?
Human Development theorist, Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory provides a visual framework for looking at the multiple systems in which we exist and how they influence the cultural ways we adopt as our own.
Microsystem consists of the activities and interactions in the person's immediate surroundings. Structures inside this system include family, neighborhood, or childcare environments. The microsystem is the layer closest to the child and contains the structures with which the child has direct contact. The microsystem encompasses the relationships and interactions a child has with her immediate surroundings. Structures in the microsystem include family, school, neighborhood, or childcare environments. At this level, relationships have impact in two directions - both away from the child and toward the child.
Example: a child’s parents may affect his beliefs and behavior; however, the child also affects the behavior and beliefs of the parent.
Mesosystem as the connecting of the structures of the microsystem. This layer provides the connection between the structures of the child’s microsystem.
Example: the connection between the child's teacher and his parents, between his church and his neighborhood.
Exosystem this layer defines the larger social system in which has indirect impact on the child. The structures in this layer impact the child’s development by interacting with some structure in her microsystem Bronfenbrenner describes the exosystem as being, 'made up of social settings that do not contain the developing person but nevertheless affect experiences in their immediate settings' The exosystem is the outer shell surrounding both the mesosystem and the microsystem. Exosystems can support both formal and informal environments.
Example: a parent's workplace flexibility, friends of parents
Macrosystem is the outside level of Bronfenbrennor's structure. This level does not contain a particular subject, rather a variety of influences such as laws, customs, resources and cultural values. The influences (e.g. child and parents) in the inner levels of the exosystem, are affected by the support of the macrosystem. Therefore, the exosystem, mesosystem and the microsystem are all affected by the macrosystem. This layer may be considered the outermost layer in the child’s environment.
Example: if it is the belief of the culture that parents should be solely responsible for raising their children, that culture is less likely to provide resources to help parents. This, in turn, affects the structures in which the parents function. The parents’ ability or inability to carry out that responsibility toward their child within the context of the child’s microsystem is likewise affected.