On Children’s Development In To Kill A Mockingbird:An Ecological Systems Theory Study

Harper Lee(1926-2016)is an important writer of the American literary world.She has published two novels in her life,and her debut,To Kill A Mockingbird is the work that makes her popular among the literary world.The novel chooses the perspective of children to highlight the American social issues such as children’s education,ethnicity,and administration of justice in the 1920 s and 1930 s,and has carved several vivid images of children,racists,and lawyer.Different researchers have studied and discussed different aspects of the novel.These problems in the novel have aroused researchers’ and society’s great attention,such as children’s narrative,justice of the court and racial discrimination in the novel.The development of children reflected in the novel,however,has still not been fully explored.Scholars paid attention to the missing mother in the novel,but according to the influence of a society on the education and development of children,the influences on children’s development are multifaceted.If we deem the influences on children’s development as one-sided,we can not fully understand the novel which exerted great efforts to reflect social issues.This study discusses the relationship between the development of children and the social environment in the novel via American developmental psychologist Bronfenbrenner’s latest theory---Ecological Systems Theory,illustrating children’s development in the system of family,friends,schools and other micro-systems which have the greatest impact on children.In the novel,Atticus,a single-parent family father.He constantly educates and guides his children to the righteousness and justice.The children play role-playing games and explore the world around with their partner.Together with the direct experience of the school teachers and classmates,children’scognition and mind were greatly improved.Mesosystem reflected the confrontations and compromises between family education and school education,influence of interreltionship between school education and peer relationship.As an exosystem,the indirect influence of Atticus’ s job and moral tension,neighbors and mass-media’s perspectives on children’s development can be reflected in Atticus’ defending for Negroes,which caused the children being defiled and looked down upon by peers and neighbors,but Mrs Maudie and Mrs Dubose and mass-media perspectives taught the children perseverance and courage and became a guiding environment in children’s developing process.The macrosystem of religion and apartheid between black and white also affects the development of children,when Scout and Jem were taken to the community church,they opened the recognition journey of apartheid and religion.Together,these events constitute an ecological system and affect the development of children in the novel.The novel’s attention to children’s growth and developing environment is reflected from the analysis and discussion of each system,and social environment is closely related to children’s development.The research also provides a new perspective for us to have a little knowledge on children’s development today.