ECED2340: Family and Community Engagement Project

Part Two: Family Profile

(Standard 1c: Understand the ways that child development and the learning process occur within multiple contexts, including family, culture, language, community, and early learning settings as well as within larger societal context that includes structural inequalities, Standard 2a: Know about, understand, and value the diversity of families.)

After the Interview, candidates will think about ways they can use the information to work with the family toward their goals. In this section, they should clearly describe, in detail (using the system levels labeled as subheadings), the characteristics of the child’s family structure, background, and the community where the child resides. Using Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, candidates will identify and discuss the following systems that are operating and affecting the child’s development. Refer to the information about this theory and “Funds of Knowledge” in Chapter 2 – Theories and Models for Family Engagement in Schools Home, School, & Community Collaboration: Culturally Responsive Family Engagement (K.B. Grant and J.A. Ray, 2024).

• Microsystem – The most significant contexts in which the child interacts in their immediate environment (family, school, peer groups, and community).
• Mesosystem – The child’s significant contexts of development that are linked to one another (home and school, school and community, home, peers, etc.).
• Exosystem – The settings in which the child does not participate directly but which influence his or her development in one of their microsystems (parents’ workplace and/or schedules, parental social support networks, parental income, community resources, decisions made by school boards, etc.)
• Macrosystem – The characteristics of the larger society that influence the child’s development (religious, cultural, or other belief systems, wealth, poverty, lifestyles, patterns of social interactions, and life changes adopted by the child’s nuclear or extended family).

Complete the following:

• Using the family from the interview in Part One, identify the information from each system (microsystem, mesosystem, etc.) and explain how it potentially impacts the child’s development and learning. Provide specific examples of the impact for each system. (1c)
• Explain and provide detailed examples of how the Ecological Systems Theory helps you understand the family overall (socioeconomic conditions; family structures; cultures and relationships; family strengths, needs, and challenges; and home languages and cultural values in the home context for the child). (2a)
• Based on information identified in the systems above, describe the “funds of knowledge” that may be used to build a relationship with the family and support family engagement in the classroom. (2a)