cotexts of midle school

What makes Coll & Szalacha model of child development “ecological”? What are the main elements of the “ecology”?

Describe how your own middle school development might relate to Coll & Szalacha’s ecological model.

Coll and Szalacha consider their frame work to be “ecological” because it incorporates the external forces that help to shape a child’s development. This framework “draws from both mainstream developmental frameworks, as well as models specific to children of color.” To help define the differences in the development of “mainstream” children and “children of color”, they explore the affects of ecological factors on development. You may be asking yourself, “What is an ecological factor?” As I hinted at in the beginning, ecological factors are social factors that are indirect influences outside of an individuals control, yet still shape how they understand and relate to new ideas and knowledge. Three examples provided by Coll and Szalacha are “social position, culture and the media”

These are not the only elements to “ecology” as defined by Coll and Szalacha. They believe there are eight major constructs to child development; social position, racism, segregation, promoting/inhibiting environments, adaptive culture, child characteristics, developmental competencies and family. They show how all of these things relate and work together, how these constructs create shared and “non-shared” experiences that help to form a child’s development. For example, segregation can be a form of racism and oppression leading to either a promoting or inhibiting environment based on the strength of the family and the community. In a promoting environment the positive values, beliefs, and goals of a culture are communicated through a supportive process of racial socialization buffering the “outsider children” from harsh mainstream prejudices.

In my own middle school experiences I witnessed some of these constructs at work. I came from a predominately white middle-class school, which made most of the discrimination and prejudicial acts socioeconomic rather than racial. Regardless of who the prejudices were targeted at in my situation, it created a lack of “school connectedness.” While poor white children were discriminated against, this issue was only compounded by the facts of race and ethnicity where it applied. While we did benefit from the left over resources of the privileged, we were exposed to “greater discrimination and unfamiliar contexts” by those whom were privileged and felt that we were taking their resources when we didn’t deserve them. Why we didn’t deserve the same resources was justified by cultural differences that projected us as academically inferior. As a white child from the suburbs with ethnic friends I was able to experience a transfer of racism for simply identifying with these other children. My belief that they were just as good of friends with equal value, and equal ability put me in a position of ridicule. I was looked at as inferior for not being able to recognize my friends inherent flaws.