Reexamining Adolescent Suicidal Ideation: A Developmental Perspective Applied to a Diverse Population

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that suicidal ideation is a common experience in a general population of African American, Hispanic, and White urban high school students residing in low-income neighborhoods. Based upon a developmental framework, it was hypothesized that once attitudes toward suicide were controlled, ideation would not vary significantly by ethnicity, gender, or psychosocial variables usually associated with ideation. The multivariate analysis revealed that ideation did not vary by ethnicity however, females, substance users, and those with greater tolerance toward suicide, higher family coping, and lower self-esteem were more likely to report ideation. A series of ideator profiles, calculated from the probability estimates, showed that an increase in tolerance substantially raises the likelihood of ideation. The results taken together raise the question of whether it is time to reconceptualize the relationship between ideation and normal adolescent development.     

Antecedents of collegiate drinking

A model designed to explain variations in the use of alcohol among undergraduates draws together three categories of variables: (1) sociocultural—race, sex, and population of student's hometown; (2) familial characteristics—father's occupation, parents' marital status, and closeness to a problem drinker; and (3) the onset of student drinking—age at first drinking and extent of drinking at its onset. A 10% random sample was drawn from the undergraduate students enrolled in two state-supported universities in the southeastern U.S. The present analysis focuses on 856 nonmarried, full-time undergraduate students. Overall, the findings show that race, degree of closeness to a problem-drinker, age at the onset of drinking, and its extent markedly influence the level of alcohol consumption among undergraduates. The strongest overall predictor of undergraduate drinking is the extent of adolescent consumption.Received M.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Research interests include alcohol and drug use and individual forms of deviance.Received Ph.D. from the University of New Hampshire. Current interests include alcohol and drug use, suicidal behavior, and interpersonal violence.     

The ‘science’ of superiority: Africa and scholarly colonial assumptions

ABSTRACT

The use of ‘neopatrimonialism’ as a category in mainstream scholarship on African polities and economies is ubiquitous. A critique by Thandika Mkandawire has shown that the ‘neopatrimonial school’ is devoid of conceptual coherence and analytical power – it is an expression of a prejudice, not a useful tool for research and analysis. The article endorses Mkandawire's view but points out that this is by no means the only example of its kind. On the contrary, the use of categories which assume the superiority of societies in the global North over those in Africa is widespread. The article illustrates this by discussing and criticising two others, the ‘democratic consolidation’ paradigm and the ‘failed state’ framework. It argues that all three shape assumptions by scholars in Africa as well as outside it which obstruct concrete analysis. A critique of these paradigms is thus essential to the development of scholarship on and about Africa.     

Why the U.S. Military Budget is ‘Foolish and Sustainable’

What defense budget the United States should have and what defense budget it can afford are separate questions. The debate raging in Washington about Pentagon spending ignores the distinction. Doves insist that we need a more modest military strategy because the current one is wasteful and economically unsustainable. Hawks say that the current approach is sensible and affordable. This article takes a third path, arguing that U.S. military policy is likely to remain extravagant because it is sustainable. We adopted our current strategy—which amounts to trying to run the world with the American military—because we could, not because it was wisest. Wealth and safety make the consequences of bad defense policy abstract for most U.S. taxpayers. So we buy defense like rich people shop, ignoring the balance of costs and benefits. We conflate ideological ambition with what is required for our safety. Unfortunately, the current political demand for austerity and fewer wars will only temporarily restrain our military spending and the ambitions it underwrites.     

Extremists are extremely extreme

Abstract

China's foreign policy during the Cultural Revolution is usually treated as a non-event. Melvin Gurtov in his careful and extremely useful chronological account of China's foreign policy at this time (RAND, RM-5934-PR) still deems it “an aberrant episode” (VII, 83). He describes it as the manifestation of a power struggle between extreme young zealots and implacable older powerholders. “Substantive policy views” are almost beside the point (76). Far Eastern Economic Review (1968 Year Book) also characterizes Cultural Revolution foreign policy as one of “excesses” and “‘extreme’ behavior,” giving anti-foreignism as its content. Anti-foreignism is seen as a deeply felt belief that an attempt to borrow from foreigners has resulted in “manipulation and exploitation” by foreigners. Yung Ho, writing for the Union Research Institue's (URI) Communist China 1967, finds the essence of Mao's thought to be opposition to “anything foreign,” and China's attempt at “propagating Mao-Tse-tung's thought abroad” to be an aggressive policy “even worse than Hitler's rule,” one which inevitably produced setbacks which further isolate China (326–327).