[5] The bioecological model reflects Ceci's work on contextual variability in intelligence and cognition and Bronfenbrenner's interest in developmentally instigative characteristics - how people help to create their own environments.
[3] Bronfenbrenner's initial investigations into contextual variability in developmental processes can be seen in the 1950s in the analysis of differences in methods of parental discipline as a function of historical time and social class.
[7] informally discussed new ideas concerning Ecological Systems Theory throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s during lectures and presentations to the psychological community.
[10][11][12] Bronfenbrenner's early thinking was strongly influenced by other developmentalists and social psychologists who studied developmental processes as contextually bound and dependent on the meaning of experience as defined by the developing person.
[13] One strong influence was Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist who emphasized recognized that learning always occurs and cannot be separated from a social context.
[15] Bronfenbrenner was also influenced by his colleague, Stephen J. Ceci, with whom he co-authored the article “Nature-nurture reconceptualized in developmental perspective: A bioecological theory” in 1994.
He urged his colleagues to study development in terms of ecological contexts, that is the normal environments of children (schools, homes, daycares).
In addition to adding to the theoretical understanding of human development, the bioecological model lends itself to changes in the conceptualization of the research endeavor.
The bioecological model also proposes that the most scientifically rich studies would include more than one distinct but theoretically related proximal process in the same design.
The ecological systems theory emerged before the advent of Internet revolution and the developmental influence of then available technology (e.g., television) was conceptually situated in the child's microsystem.
[22] This microsystem comprises both child interaction with living (e.g., peers, parents, teachers) and non-living (e.g., hardware, gadgets) elements of communication, information, and recreation technologies in immediate or direct environments.
[23] Whereas the theory of the techno-subsystem merely highlights the influence that digital technologies have on the development of an individual within the microsystem, Navarro and Tudge argue that the virtual world be given its own consideration throughout the Bioecological model.