“Down here, it’s our time”: Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems and ‘The Goonies’

In this chapter, I am going to introduce you to a well-loved movie of the 1980s and an equally well-loved theory from child development, which can also be used for thinking about complex systems in society. My assertion is that Bronfenbrenner’s theory has been given a reductive handling, which means the nuances are lost in many examples of its use and description. In this chapter the theory will be explored so that it can be considered more fairly as a useful resource for sociologists, psychologists and pedagogues