Nursery World - Early Years Pioneers: Urie Bronfenbrenner

The interaction of children's development with larger aspects of society was the focus of Urie Bronfenbrenner's research and theory, writes Professor Tricia David

Urie Bronfenbrenner was born in Moscow in 1917. At the age of six, he emigrated to the United States with his family.

Throughout his life, Bronfenbrenner was clearly a very able scholar as well as a warm and respected human being. His first degree was in music and psychology, and it was the latter that attracted him as the focus of postgraduate work at Harvard University. Bronfenbrenner served in the army during the Second World War but afterwards he returned to academic life, gaining a doctorate in child development in 1948. He was a co-founder of the USA's Head Start programme and he became a leading world figure in the field of child development, child rearing and ecology.

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