Separate or together? Women-only public spaces and participation of Saudi women in the public domain in Saudi Arabia

Gender segregation in the public domain has become a cornerstone of the Saudi interpretation of Islam (Doumato 2009). It is a development that has led to the coming about of extensive separate public spaces that are only for women (Doumato 2009; Hamdan 2005; Le Renard 2008, 2014). In these women-only public spaces, women undertake activities that are by them and for them, therewith reinforcing the existence of these separate structures. This institutionalisation and practice of women-only public spaces, as well as its opposite phenomenon of ‘mixing’ between the two sexes (ikhtilā?) however is contested and led to a heated debate. This debate centres around the question of whether and if so, how women should participate in the public domain. Starting with an overview of the historical development of women-only public spaces and ikhtilā? in Saudi Arabia, I will show how these have evolved. Drawing on fieldwork among urban, educated Saudi women, I shed light on how attitudes and strategies of female respondents regarding women-only public spaces and ikhtilā? are related to their ideas about their presence in the public domain and notions of ‘the liberation of women’, ‘empowerment’, and ‘the rise of women’. I conclude by demonstrating how ideas about the participation of women in the public sphere are positioned as part of the construction of a local, ‘enchanted’ modernity (Deeb, 2006) that has a material and a spiritual dimension.     

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Prolonged Grief in Children: Feasibility and Multiple Baseline Study

There is growing recognition of a syndrome of disturbed grief referred to as prolonged grief disorder (PGD). Although mostly studied in adults, clinically significant PGD symptoms have also been observed in children and adolescents. To date, no effective treatment for childhood PGD yet exists. We developed a 9-session cognitive-behavioral treatment for childhood PGD, combined with 5 sessions of parental counseling. In the present article, the content of this treatment is described. We also describe findings of a multiple baseline study among 6 bereaved children and adolescents. This study showed that the intervention coincided with reductions in symptoms of PGD and other self-rated and parent-rated symptoms. All participating children and parents gave favorable scores to the satisfaction about each session, the contact with their therapist, and the information they received, attesting to the feasibility of this treatment approach.     

A study of the discrepancy between self- and observer-ratings on managerial derailment characteristics of European managers

Managerial derailment is costly to managers, their co-workers, and their organization. Knowing whether discrepancies (i.e., differences, dissimilarity, disagreement, incongruity) exist between self- and observer- (subordinates, peers, and bosses) ratings about derailment may help to lessen or prevent the detrimental outcomes of derailment on managers, their co-workers, and their organization. Results from 1742 European managers revealed a statistically significant difference between a manager's self-ratings and observer-ratings on the extent to which a manager displayed derailment behaviours and characteristics. The discrepancy also widened as managerial level increased, and was mostly due to inflated self-ratings. In addition, discrepancies between self – boss, self – direct report, and self – peer were examined, as well as differences between European and American managers. A discussion of these findings and implications for practice conclude this article.     

Charting the Attributes of God: The Common Ground of Three Religions according to Ramon Llull (1232–1316)

The Open Letter written by 138 major representatives of Islam to the leaders of the Christian churches, on 13 October 2007, came as something of a surprise. Perhaps more surprisingly, in 1283, the Catalan theologian, Ramon Llull, wrote imaginatively of exactly such a letter in one of his novels, thus demonstrating that the interfaith question is not just a problem of our modern times, which became acute only on September 11. On the contrary, the churches have always been conscious of this interfaith context. Yet methods of tackling the problem have differed widely down the centuries and among Christian traditions. The solution proposed by Ramon Llull and analysed in this article starts from the common acceptance of the attributes of God in all three monotheistic religions. It deserves our attention not only as an interesting historical example but also as a way of avoiding some of our current problems and impasses.     

Constructive Theology,the Cross of Christ,and the Praxis of Liberation

The article relates Paul Hinlicky's project of critical dogmatics to the constructive work of two Reformed theologians, Jürgen Moltmann's The Crucified God (1972) and Mark Lewis Taylor's The Executed God (2001/2015). After highlighting central tenets of Hinlicky's paradigm I discuss and compare the monographs by Moltmann and Taylor, weighing their similarities and differences. I conclude by pointing out the shared interest of critical dogmatics and constructive theology.     

Detection of Feigned Psychosis with the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS): A Study of Coached and Uncoached Simulators

The aim of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS) to detect feigned psychosis in naïve, informed, and coached participants. Sixty undergraduate students were administered the SIMS and a number of filler questionnaires and asked to fill out the questionnaire honestly (controls; n = 15) or instructed to malinger psychosis because they were standing trial for a serious offense. Before they completed the SIMS, instructed malingerers either received no further information (naïve malingerers; n = 15), some information about psychotic symptoms (informed malingerers; n = 15), or some information about psychosis and a warning not to exaggerate symptoms (coached malingerers; n = 15). Even in the group of coached malingerers, the SIMS had acceptable sensitivity and specificity rates. These findings suggest that the SIMS may be of value in forensic assessments.     

Voters’ Partisan Responses to Politicians’ Immoral Behavior

Politicians’ moral behaviors affect how voters evaluate them. But existing empirical research on the effects of politicians’ violations of moral standards pays little attention to the heterogeneous moral foundations of voters in assessing responses to violations. It also pays little attention to the ways partisan preferences shape responses. We examine voters’ heterogeneous evaluative and emotional responses to presumably immoral behaviors by politicians. We make use of moral foundation theory’s argument that people vary in the extent to which they endorse, value, and use the five universally available moral intuitions: care, fairness, loyalty, authority and sanctity. We report on a 5 × 3 between‐subjects experiment asking a random sample of 2,026 U.S. respondents to respond to politicians’ violations of different moral foundations. We randomly vary which of the five foundations is violated and the partisanship of the actor (Republic/Democrat/Nonpartisan). Results suggest that partisanship rather than moral foundations drives most of U.S. voters’ responses to moral foundations violations by politicians. These foundations seem malleable when partisan actors are involved. While Democrats in this sample show stronger negative emotional response to moral violations than Republicans, partisans of both parties express significantly greater negativity when a politician of the other party violates a moral foundation.