UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA (UNISA)
Department of Inclusive Education
⋄
Ecological Systems, Ubuntu, and a
Rights-Based Approach to Inclusion
Assignment 3 — 2026
⋄
Module Code: HED4810
Module Name: Inclusive Education
Assignment No.: Assignment 3
Due Date: 15 September 2026
Semester: Semester 2, 2026
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for HED4810
at the University of South Africa.
, UNISA | HED4810 Ecological Systems, Ubuntu and Rights-Based Inclusion
Question 1: The Ecological Systems Perspective and Inclusive Teaching Strategies
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory frames a learner’s development as the product
of nested, interacting environments rather than a fixed trait located inside the child. The mi-
crosystem covers the classroom, family, and peer group; the mesosystem covers the links
between these settings, such as home-school communication; the exosystem covers settings
that affect the child indirectly, such as a parent’s workplace or the school governing body;
and the macrosystem covers the broader cultural values, policy, and legislation that shape
all the other levels (Fanshawe, 2025). For inclusive education, the value of this perspective is
that a barrier to learning is never assumed to sit only inside the learner. A reading difficulty, a
behavioural concern, or a language gap is read instead as a mismatch between the learner
and one or more of the systems around them, which shifts the educator’s task from fixing the
child to adjusting the environment (Spear and Kirkman, 2024).
1.1 Strategy One: Strengthening the Mesosystem through Structured Home-School Collabora-
tion
The mesosystem is the connective tissue between a learner’s microsystems, and it is fre-
quently the weakest link for learners experiencing barriers. Jama and Lunga (2024) found
that South African Foundation Phase teachers who built structured, ongoing communication
with parents, rather than only contacting the home when a problem arose, were able to iden-
tify barriers earlier and sustain support strategies consistently between the classroom and
the home. A concrete application is a two-way communication book or a termly collaborative
meeting in which the teacher and the parent jointly decide on one or two support goals, so
that a strategy used in class, such as a visual timetable, is reinforced at home rather than
contradicted. This strategy treats the family and the school not as separate influences but as
a single interacting system, which is the central insight of Bronfenbrenner’s model applied to
schooling (Jama and Lunga, 2024).
1.2 Strategy Two: Differentiated Instruction to Adjust the Microsystem
Differentiation adjusts the immediate classroom microsystem so that the same lesson be-
comes accessible to learners with different starting points, paces, and support needs, instead
of expecting every learner to adapt to one fixed method of teaching. Mnyamana, Matope, and
Ndebele (2024) studied Grade 6 teachers in the Eastern Cape and found that where teachers
Page 1 of 8
Department of Inclusive Education
⋄
Ecological Systems, Ubuntu, and a
Rights-Based Approach to Inclusion
Assignment 3 — 2026
⋄
Module Code: HED4810
Module Name: Inclusive Education
Assignment No.: Assignment 3
Due Date: 15 September 2026
Semester: Semester 2, 2026
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for HED4810
at the University of South Africa.
, UNISA | HED4810 Ecological Systems, Ubuntu and Rights-Based Inclusion
Question 1: The Ecological Systems Perspective and Inclusive Teaching Strategies
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory frames a learner’s development as the product
of nested, interacting environments rather than a fixed trait located inside the child. The mi-
crosystem covers the classroom, family, and peer group; the mesosystem covers the links
between these settings, such as home-school communication; the exosystem covers settings
that affect the child indirectly, such as a parent’s workplace or the school governing body;
and the macrosystem covers the broader cultural values, policy, and legislation that shape
all the other levels (Fanshawe, 2025). For inclusive education, the value of this perspective is
that a barrier to learning is never assumed to sit only inside the learner. A reading difficulty, a
behavioural concern, or a language gap is read instead as a mismatch between the learner
and one or more of the systems around them, which shifts the educator’s task from fixing the
child to adjusting the environment (Spear and Kirkman, 2024).
1.1 Strategy One: Strengthening the Mesosystem through Structured Home-School Collabora-
tion
The mesosystem is the connective tissue between a learner’s microsystems, and it is fre-
quently the weakest link for learners experiencing barriers. Jama and Lunga (2024) found
that South African Foundation Phase teachers who built structured, ongoing communication
with parents, rather than only contacting the home when a problem arose, were able to iden-
tify barriers earlier and sustain support strategies consistently between the classroom and
the home. A concrete application is a two-way communication book or a termly collaborative
meeting in which the teacher and the parent jointly decide on one or two support goals, so
that a strategy used in class, such as a visual timetable, is reinforced at home rather than
contradicted. This strategy treats the family and the school not as separate influences but as
a single interacting system, which is the central insight of Bronfenbrenner’s model applied to
schooling (Jama and Lunga, 2024).
1.2 Strategy Two: Differentiated Instruction to Adjust the Microsystem
Differentiation adjusts the immediate classroom microsystem so that the same lesson be-
comes accessible to learners with different starting points, paces, and support needs, instead
of expecting every learner to adapt to one fixed method of teaching. Mnyamana, Matope, and
Ndebele (2024) studied Grade 6 teachers in the Eastern Cape and found that where teachers
Page 1 of 8
