Table 1.

Key Terms and Definitions—Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model [40].

Key Term	Definition
Ecological environment	Nested arrangement of structures that are “each contained within the next”
Microsystem	“Complex of relations” between an individual and the environment that exist in that individual’s immediate setting, as defined by place, time, physical features, activity, participant, and role
Mesosystem	“Interrelations” among the major settings in which an individual is situated at a particular point in that individual’s life; in other words, a mesosystem is “a system of microsystems”
Exosystem	An extension of the mesosystem; encompasses other formal or informal social structures that do not directly contain the individual, but that “impinge upon or encompass the immediate settings in which that [individual] is found, and thereby influence, delimit, or even determine what goes on there”; this may include work, neighborhood, mass media, government agencies, etc.
Macrosystem	“Overarching institutional patterns of the culture or subculture” (that is, economic, social, educational, legal, and political systems) that encompass the micro-, meso-, and exo-systems