http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ebdstudy/strategy/ecosys.htm

Ecosystem Systems Theory analyzes the interactions of people in networks encompassed in an ecosystem or certain environment. Schools serve as interesting domains for such studies because children undergo many changes in their relationships during periods in their lives, such as during elementary school. The attached article discusses the ways in which a teacher can deal with a disruptive student. It states that such students are children who seek to maintain balance in their lives.

From a networks perspective, this scenario becomes more comprehensible. For our purposes, let us denote three triads: A being between the child, mother, and father, B being between the child, teacher and mother, and C being between the child, teacher and father. Let us assume that the child’s relationship with his parents is antagonistic. The child thinks that he is misunderstood, and his parents, with a positive edge between them, are trying to help him. (For triad A to be structurally balanced, the parents must have a good relationship with one another). Now as a result of the child’s negative tensions with his parents, he releases these tensions in class on his teacher. The concept of structural balance can explain this phenomenon. From our assumption, we know that triad A is structurally balanced. In triad B, we can assume that the mother and the teacher share a positive edge, perhaps because the mother and teacher are working in conjunction to help the child to be less disruptive and disobedient. Thus, triad B has a positive edge between the mother and teacher and negative edges between student, teacher and student, mother. Since triad C is identical to triad B (dealing with the father instead of the mother), the entire network is balanced.

Now what does this indicate to an outside observer? One can assume the parents and the teacher would want to flip the negative edges in the networks to positive ones. In this case, all negative edges branch from the child. In theory, if any of the edges become positive, that is if the child makes a positive connection with at least one of the other nodes, then the problem could be remedied. If one node is changed in any triad of the network, the network becomes structurally unbalanced. This fact opens up the possibility for the network to become structurally stable with all positive edges. For instance, if the teacher can reach through to the student and solve his problem, the edge between the child and the teacher will become positive, and triad’s B and C will thus become unstable due to the presence of two positive edges and one negative edge. If efforts to help the child are effective and the parents are lucky, the network will stabilize as a result of the child accepting his parents and with all edges being positive, everyone will be happy.