(BNAS) in the early 1970s. The scale enables parents,
health care professionals, and researchers to under-
stand a newborn’s language, as well as individual
strengths and needs in depth. The BNAS assesses var-
ious behaviors of infants until two months of age and
takes about thirty minutes to administer. This assess-
ment evaluates four main areas, including the infants’
ability to monitor their own breathing, temperature,
and other bodily systems; control their motor move-
ments; maintain an appropriate level of conscious-
ness, which ranges from quiet sleep to a full cry; and
interact socially with parents and other caregivers.
The purpose of the BNAS is to help professionals as-
sess the infant’s pattern of response to the environ-
ment and then assist parents with strategies to build
a positive relationship with their infant.
See also: BIRTH; BRAZELTON, T. BERRY; REFLEXES
Bibliography
Brazelton, T. Berry, and Bertrand G. Cramer, eds. ‘‘The Assess-
ment of the Newborn.’’ The Earliest Relationship. Reading, MA:
Perseus Books, 1990.
Tedder, Janice L. ‘‘Using the Brazelton Neonatal Assessment Scale
to Facilitate the Parent-Infant Relationship in Primary Care
Settings.’’ Nurse Practitioner 16 (1991):27–36.
Joan Ziegler Delahunt
BRONFENBRENNER, URIE (1917–)
Urie Bronfenbrenner was born in 1917 in Moscow. At
the age of six he arrived in the United States with his
family. His father, a physician and neuropathologist,
worked at a state institution in New York. He can re-
call his father’s concern with the overreliance on a sin-
gle IQ testing to place children in institutions for the
mentally retarded. Russian immigrant psychologists
also visited his home and discussed outstanding psy-
chologists, such as Kurt Lewin and Lev Vygotsky. In
1934 he won a scholarship to Cornell University
where he majored in psychology. From Cornell, he
went on to receive his master’s degree in develop-
mental psychology from Harvard University, and in
1942 he received his doctorate from the University of
Michigan. Immediately after his graduation from
Michigan, he entered the U.S. Army, serving as a psy-
chologist from 1942 to 1946. After teaching briefly at
Michigan for two years, he moved to Cornell Univer-
sity in 1948. His father, confined to a sanatorium for
tuberculosis, continued to influence Bronfenbren-
ner’s thinking in psychology through letter writing.
Bronfenbrenner’s highly productive contribu-
tions to developmental psychology contain several
connected themes. He worked to develop theory and
research methods that looked at patterns of develop-
ment across time. He also became interested in social
and political policies and practices affecting children
and families. In addition, he has always sought to
communicate his ideas about development to the wid-
est possible audience.
His lifelong interest as a psychologist in the inter-
actions between the developing child and the envi-
ronment have led him to develop his social ecology
of human development. Here, he considers the devel-
opment to take place within nested systems. He calls
these the microsystem (such as the family or class-
room), the mesosytem (which is two microsystems in
interaction), the exosystem (which is a system influ-
encing development, such as a parental workplace),
and the macrosystem (the larger cultural context).
Each system contains roles, norms, and rules that can
powerfully shape development.
In addition to being a founder of Head Start,
Bronfenbrenner has won numerous awards, honors,
and honorary degrees for his many significant contri-
butions to developmental psychology. In 1996 the
American Psychological Association awarded him the
Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology
in the Service of Science and Society Award. Bronfen-70 BRONFENBRENNER, URIE