The Impact of Language Status as an Acculturative Stressor on Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors among Latino/a Children: A Longitudinal Analysis from School Entry through Third Grade

This study examined the relationship between limited English proficiency status, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors among a sample of Latino/a children (N = 2,840) from the US Department of Education’s Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten (ECLS-K) data set. Results of cross sectional regression and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses suggest that there is a positive relationship between limited English proficiency and externalizing symptoms, particularly by third grade. Additionally, sex and place of birth also helped to explain externalizing behaviors at various time points in the models. Place of birth and family poverty were significantly associated with internalizing symptoms. Implications for future research and interventions related to internalizing and externalizing behavior among the Latino/a school aged population are discussed.

Surviving the suicides of significant others: a case study

Psychological pain has been reported to be major contributing factor for completed suicide, and classical suicidology based its wisdom on this construct. In this paper we report the case of a patient whose family experienced a high number of suicides apparently due to an escalation of psychological pain in the family members after the successive suicides. We also briefly discuss the problem of helping survivors after the suicide of loved one.     

History of childhood abuse and neglect and suicidal behavior at hospital admission

Suicide is a major public health problem. Preventive measures have been sought by identifying risk factors. This study evaluates the association of childhood abuse and neglect with suicidal behavior at the time of psychiatric hospital admission. A total of 120 subjects (72 females; mean age 42.5 +/- 15.6 years old) admitted from August 2006 to July 2007 completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) to assess severity of exposure to childhood maltreatment. Thereof 62 (51.6%) patients presented with suicidal behavior at admission. Patients who had attempted suicide had significantly higher CTQ scores. Regression analysis indicated that shorter illness duration and severity of childhood maltreatment were predictors of suicidal behavior at admission. The study showed that inpatients of a psychiatric unit of a general hospital who experienced severe childhood abuse or neglect were significantly more likely to present with suicidal behavior. History of childhood maltreatment should be evaluated as an associated risk factor of suicidal behavior at admission of psychiatric inpatients.     

Reflective Judgement and Prudential Rationality: A Contribution to an Inclusive Practical Application of Law

Hannah Arendt has developed a theory of the importance of judgment of taste for political manners, founded on the Kantian aesthetic theory. Nowadays this theory is considered a current theoretical reference for establishing a political way to reconcile the demands of the radicalization of deliberative democracy with the need for political inclusion (Iris Marion Young, Seyla Benhabib). Albena Azmanova in her The Scandal of Reason: A Critical Theory of Political Judgment proposes an inclusive political rhetoric. The political theory founded on judgment is based on Kant’s philosophy; it was developed by Arendt and has greatly influenced the current debate, as an alternative theory in which the moral basis of law can be more sensitive to human contexts; a universalist theory more adequate for dealing with the tragic dimension of human life. The theory of political judgment uses the concepts of reflective judgment and ‘enlarged thought’ as its main concepts. As a starting point, a theory like this considers the singular judgments of justice that each person makes. The background, therefore, is not a rational foundation of principles, but the capacity of rational beings to make judgments. This post-metaphysical theory of law, based on a theory of judgment, is a critique of legal positivism, but presents itself as an alternative to the idealistic theory of law. But this theoretical project has received some criticism related to the adequacy of Arendt’s rereading of Kantian philosophy and her attempt to approximate Kant’s reflective judgment to the Aristotelian concept of phronêsis. Some critics, such as Bryan Garsten, believe that Kant’s rhetoric of public reason diminished and displaced the prudential faculty of judgment that Arendt is to be interested in reviving. Arendt’s attempt to find a theory of judgment in Kant’s aesthetic theory is not successful, in Garsten’s view. Our purpose is to show that a critical theory of judicial judgment is not only possible, but necessary; Arendt’s theory of judgment offers an important contribution to a critical theory of judicial judgment, particularly one devoted to the construction of a legal theory that prioritizes a politics of social inclusion. This theory proposes a critical approach to the project of the procedural conception of democracy, since it can mask social exclusion. An adequate understanding of judicial argumentation cannot forget that it happens in a rhetorical context: it is not only important what a discourse says, but how it says it. The radicalization of deliberative democracy supposes a revision of the ways judicial deliberation is thought: not by reference to universal or at least general principles, but taking into consideration what is ‘critically relevant’, with a view to remedying social injustice (following Azmanova).

     

Logique sans vérité

Sans résumé