Hugo: Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Model

Throughout the development of psychology, psychologists have thought up their own suggestions of how humans develop. Urie Bronfenbrenner was a famous psychologist that questioned past theories of lifespan development. He wanted to tie together “social and cultural context” within development. Because of this, Bronfenbrenner came up with the bioecological approach, which “suggests that there are five levels of the environment that simultaneously influence individuals." The five levels of of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Model are the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. The movie Hugo can be used to explain Bronfenbrenner’s system. In the movie, Hugo is a young orphan boy that lives in a train station, in …show more content…
These people and events can be broken down into Bronfenbrenner’s five levels of lifespan development. They show how Hugo became the person he was in the movie. The microsystem, the first level of Bronfenbrenner’s system, is “the everyday, immediate environment of children’s daily lives." One thing that Hugo interacts with every day is the robot his late father found. The two of them had been working on it together, but Hugo took over finishing it when he died. In the first twenty minutes of the movie, the robot is shown several times, showing the importance it has in Hugo’s life. Because Hugo is an orphan, he feels that fixing the robot would make him feel “[not] so alone,” so he tries his hardest to do so. The mesosystem is the next level out in Bronfenbrenner’s system. It “connects the various aspects of the microsystem." Two people from Hugo’s microsystem that are connected in the mesosystem are Isabelle and Papa Georges. Georges (Papa Georges) Méilès works in the train station. Hugo meets Isabelle in the train station because she is often there. He later finds out that Papa Georges is Isabelle’s godfather. Their interactions make them part of Hugo’s …show more content…
The exosystem “represents broader influences." It can also “have an immediate and major impact on personal development, but may not physically contain the developing person." Hugo’s father is the biggest part of his exosystem. His father died in a fire, leaving him as an orphan in Hugo. He has influence on Hugo, but not in his everyday life because his death, leaving Hugo on his own. Something Hugo does every day is work on the robot, something his father taught him how to do. Hugo also feels connected to his father by working on the project he was working on up until his