Reflections: Literature as data

Brendtro, Larry K. The Vision of Urie Bronfenbrenner: adults who are crazy about kids. Reclaiming Children and Youth Vol/Issue: 15 (3), Date: Sep 22, 2006, Page: 162

I recently read The Ethics Of Reading: A Traveller’s Guide, written by Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, and I am trying to put some of her advice on reading into practice. She suggests that there is great importance in becoming familiar with “intellectual ancestors” and digging deeper to discover who inspired the author’s of the articles that created an “a-ha” moment during my studies. With reflection, I find myself influenced and impacted by the likes of Neufeld, Greene, Brokenleg. Larry Brendtro is a co-author, with Brokenleg, of the book Reclaiming Youth At Risk: Our Hope for the Future and also a founding member of Life Space Crisis Intervention. I have had the honour of taking a workshop with Brokenleg and participating in a week long course with LSCI, where I gained new skills for reclaiming students showing patterns of self-defeating behavior.

This article, written by Brendtro, has unveiled the life work of Urie Bronfenbrenner to me. “Young Urie was deeply influenced by seeing his father's frustration when the juvenile courts consigned healthy children to the institution.” This lead Bronfenbrenner to his dedication to helping children, the creation a new field of study that looked at the specific ecology of human development, and his ideas about “circles of influence.” The foundation for all of his work is his belief that “in order to develop intellectually, emotionally, socially, and morally that a child requires participation, on a regular basis over an extended period in the child's life, with one or more persons with whom the child develops a strong, mutual, irrational, emotional attachment and who is committed to the child's well-being and development, preferably for life.”

During a Qualitative Methods lecture with Michael Ling, we discussed ideas around how the scientific method became a base for our modern education system, and reasons why only following this method has ethical implications. Cut from a different cloth, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory is wide-ranging and multifaceted. When studying human beings, it is impossible to eliminate and focus on only one variable in the environment. Therefore, Bronfenbrenner argues that “attempts must be made to scan the ecology for factors of most importance.” He suggests that a trusting adult needs to “targeted an area that most profoundly affect healthy development. These are the immediate circles of influence of family, peers, and school.” Sometimes a simple statement is the most impactful and I will keep Urie’s motto that “there are no disposable children” in my head and my heart.