The Macrosystem: From Child to Adult

1379 Words3 Pages

This paper focuses mainly on the macrosystem, examining society, culture, and ecological system. Mental health and community counselors should keep in mind the complex, reciprocal interactions that characterize personal behavior in situations. Macrosystem: Describes the culture in which individuals live. Cultural contexts include developing and industrialized countries, socioeconomic status, poverty, and ethnicity.

There have been a number of theories surveyed that are foundational to the profession of mental health counseling. The foundational areas are the development across the lifespan, ecological theory, mental health, and mental health promotion. These together form a unique base from which mental health and community counselors practice. This is referred to as,” The comprehensive mental health counseling model, a comprehensive model.” The model places the dimensions of mental illness and mental health/wellness with and ecological context. Mental health and community counseling assess for personal and ecological strengths and assets in addition to symptoms and deficits.

One of the well known scholars in the field of developmental psychology, Urie

Bronfenbrenner has been the primary contributor to the ecological systems theory. The ecological theory defines four types of systems which contain roles, norms and rules that shape development. The systems include a microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. The microsystem is the family, classroom, or systems in the immediate environment in which a person is operating. The mesosystem is two Microsystems interacting, such as the connection between a child’s home and school. The exosystem is an environment in which an individual is indirectly involved and is extern...

... middle of paper ...

...ork for selecting and organizing concepts of social environment. It focuses on traditional human behavior, social environment perspectives used in social work curricula in the U.S by Identifying how a macrosystem of the four societal forces (social justice, social problems, social policy and political economy) works to influence a micro-system of community, organizational, and group dynamics.

Peters, D. L., & Klein, E. L. (1981). The Education of Young Children: Perspectives on Possible Futures. Theory Into Practice, 20(2), 141. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. This article examines the impact of the future on form /content of early childhood education. Implications of societal change for the child and family in relation to the development of early education programs/ study of the Microsystems, exosystem and the macrosystem on the processes of learning and development.

Open Document