Posted on 09/26/2005 1:11:47 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
ITHACA, N.Y. - Urie Bronfenbrenner, a Cornell University psychologist who pioneered an interdisciplinary approach to the study of child development and helped create the federal Head Start program, has died. He was 88.
Bronfenbrenner, a member of the Cornell faculty since 1948, died at his home Sunday from complications from diabetes, the school announced Monday.
The Russian-born Bronfenbrenner was credited with creating the interdisciplinary field of human ecology and was widely regarded as one of the world's leading scholars in developmental psychology and child-rearing.
Before Bronfenbrenner, child psychologists studied the child, sociologists examined the family, anthropologists the society, economists the economic framework of the times and political scientists the governing structure.
"Urie was the quintessential person for spurring psychologists to look up and realize that interpersonal relationships, even the smallest level of the child and the parent-child relationship, did not exist in a social vacuum," said Melvin L. Kohn, a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University, who studied under Bronfenbrenner.
Earlier in his career, Bronfenbrenner helped spur the creation of Head Start, the federal child development program for low-income children that has served millions of children since 1965.
According to an account on the American Psychological Association's Web site, Bronfenbrenner was on a Head Start planning committee appointed by R. Sargent Shriver, director of President Johnson's anti-poverty efforts. Bronfenbrenner persuaded his colleagues to include the family and community in Head Start, in order to better help poor children.
In his later years, Bronfenbrenner warned that the process that makes human beings human was breaking down as trends in American society produced chaos in the lives of America's children.
"The hectic pace of modern life poses a threat to our children second only to poverty and unemployment," he said.
He was the author, co-author or editor of 14 books and more than 300 articles and chapters. He held many honorary degrees, and the American Psychological Association gives an annual award in his name for contributions to developmental psychology.
At his death, Bronfenbrenner was the Jacob Gould Sherman Professor Emeritus of Human Development and of Psychology at Cornell.
Born in Moscow in 1917, Bronfenbrenner came to the United States at age 6. He received a bachelor's degree from Cornell in 1938, a master's from Harvard and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He served in the Army as a psychologist before joining the Cornell faculty.
He is survived by his wife, Liese; and six children. Daughter Kate Bronfenbrenner is the director of labor education research at Cornell.
Apparently the latest data shows that Head Start is a failure. The kids don't show any increased achievement in later grades.
So how much did he cost the American taxpayer?
Ithaca - 10 square miles surrounded by reality.
I am beginning to think a Hellmouth is in Ithaca.
The number of stupid things that come from there is amazing. On a per capita basis, I think they beat Berkeley.
Head Start belongs in the ambivalent at best dustbin along with Job Corps.
It became day care from what I'm told.
My mother was among the very first Headstart employees. I think my sisters and I were among the first of the Headstart children and have been fairly successful.
However, after 20 years with Headstart my mother walked away from the program claiming that they had lost their way and forgotten their mission. Today Headstart is about ideology, politics, power, and control.
Nice try, Urie. RIP.
Yes, it's nothing more than a babysitting service.
No, no, no.
HeadStart would be a tremendous success if only the evil Bush would pour some more money into it.
The "latest data" you cite comes from the right-wing propagandists who only want to starve our children and deprive them of an education so they can steal their oil and brainwash them into becoming Halliburton workers who beat up homosexuals for a living.
However, there is no one grade or year that determines everything about a child's chances in life. If the preschool experience is great, and then in elementary school, they are left at 3:15 alone at home with loser neighbors or gangbangers all around, it's all for nothing.
The Village most of these people live in is NOT helping raise decent human beings. It Takes Two Parents who have the time to spend with the actual child. Human children need about 16-18 years of constant input by decent role models and supporters.
Billions and billions.
All wasted on this big government boondoggle.
That was my point.
Like most gvt programs, I doubt if he foresaw its eventual size and price tag when it started.
Figures he'd be a Russian.
And a make work program for teachers.
Born the Year of the Bolshevik Revolution.. ;-)
Coincidence?
*60 percent of black children grow up in fatherless homes.
*800,000 black men are in jail or prison.
*70 percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers.
*Over 300,000 black babies are aborted annually.
*50 percent of new AIDS cases are in the black community.
*Almost half of young black men in America's cities are neither working nor in school. What we have here is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.
"Head Start" is one of the liberals' sacred cows. I made the mistake of doing that to some of my liberal relatives, and we're still not on speaking terms.
Its been exploding. None of this is new, the situation has not been significantly different in 25 years.
The effects are already here in full. In fact (I hope), this all may have already peaked.
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