Urie Bronfenbrenner

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Urie Bronfenbrenner (born April 29, 1917 in Moscow , † September 25, 2005 in Ithaca , NY ) was an American developmental psychologist and author.

biography

Bronfenbrenner's family emigrated to the United States in 1923 . In 1938 Urie graduated from Cornell University in New York with a degree in psychology and music, and in 1942 received his doctorate in developmental psychology. He was then drafted into the Air Force and later to the Secret Service Office of Strategic Services , where he was employed as a psychologist during World War II . In 1946 he became an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan , and in 1948 he moved to Cornell University, where he taught until his retirement in 1987. In the early 1960s, he was one of the first US scientists to go to the Soviet Union via an exchange program .

plant

Bronfenbrenner became known in particular with his theory of human development, the ecosystem approach . He emphasized the particular importance of the transitions between systems (such as schooling ), in contrast to other systemic approaches that primarily ask about the structure or rules of the systems. Bronfenbrenner achieved educational relevance above all in the Head Start program for early childhood education, which he co-founded . Bronfenbrenner developed ideas for a caring curriculum for the first time in Germany on the occasion of the speech for his honorary doctorate in Münster .

He has received numerous awards for his work, including a total of seven honorary doctorates (for example from the Technical University of Berlin and the University of Münster ). Awards include the American Educational Society's Award for Outstanding Achievement in 1975, the American Psychological Association's (APA) Kurt Lewin Award in 1977, the University of Michigan Award for Outstanding Achievement in 1984 and the Award for Outstanding Scientific Contribution in 1987 for the development of children in society for research into child development. In 1978 he was accepted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1994 Cornell University named the Family and Life Course Research Center Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center . In 1996 the American Psychological Society donated the Bronfenbrenner Prize for lifelong contributions to developmental psychology in the service of science and society , the first prize of which was Urie Bronfenbrenner himself.

Urie Bronfenbrenner died of complications from his diabetes in his home in Ithaca, New York. He left behind his wife Liese and six children.

Quote

During the Second World War, Bronfenbrenner was transferred to the military secret service, the Office of Strategic Services . There he came to a group that had to assess the suitability of future agents according to psychological standards (Silbereisen 1986, p. 45).

«And who do I meet there? Edward C. Tolman , Theodore Newcomb, Kurt Lewin and David Levy! So the behavioral scientists were called in to carry out the aptitude test. (...) Lewin and I became friends for two reasons: On the one hand, there was this debate about questions of theory between him and Tolman. I listened intently, and then asked the famous clever questions that often got to the bottom of the matter. On the other hand, Lewin was an enthusiastic singer. He knew folk songs from all over the world, just like me. So we sang all night and debated psychology. So I got together not only with him, but also with Tolman - the one with the 'cognitive maps'. (...) So I brought both ideas together, Tolman the behaviorist and Lewin the phenomenologist. In my head it was a kind of marriage between Europe and America. "

Publications (selection)

  • Educational systems. Children in the United States and the Soviet Union. dtv, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-423-00941-1 .
  • The ecology of human development. Natural and Planned Experiments. Klett-Cotta, 1981, ISBN 3-12-930620-X .
  • Recent Advances in Research on the Ecology of Human Development. In: R.-K. Silbereisen, Klaus Eyferth, G. Rudinger (Ed.): Development as Action in Context - Problem Behavior and Normal Youth Development. Springer, Berlin 1986, pp. 287-310.
  • with Ann Crouter: The evolution of environmental models in developmental research. In: P.-H. Mussen (Ed.): Handbook of Child Psychology, Volume I: History, Theory, and Methods. 4th edition. John Wiley & Sons, New York 1983, pp. 357-414.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bronfenbrenner, Urie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American developmental psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 2005
Place of death Ithaca , NY