Human rights and mental health among Latin American women in situations of state-sponsored violence. Bibliographic resources

A Task Force of the American Psychological Association Division 35, Psychology of Women, has been collecting resources that address issues of human rights and mental health among Latin American women living in situations of war and/or state-sponsored violence. This work is being conducted primarily by women's groups, progressive organizations, and individual women in these contexts of institutionalized political violence. This paper describes our reflections on themes that emerged from our reading of this work. We discuss the false dichotomy between public and private violence, the silencing of women as an inevitable consequence of state-imposed violence, and the collective efforts of women to resist violence and heal its effects. These themes suggest that extreme violence against women can be most adequately understood and responded to within a psychosocial and cultural framework. We examined three issues that emerge from the material gathered by the Task Force that suggest how some Latin American psychologists and activists have begun to articulate such a framework: (a) exile within and outside of one's country of origin; (b) torture, the most extreme form of state-sponsored violence; and (c) nontraditional, culturally appropriate interventions that are alternatives to Anglo-Saxon theory and practice. The work of Latin American individuals is described here as a resource for all who are engaged in the struggle to achieve justice for women.     

Critical thinking skills and reflective judgment development: Redefining the aims of higher education

Educators who agree that critical thinking and intellectual development are appropriate aims of higher education do not always agree on what constitutes good thinking. This study examined the relationship between two constructs that attempt to describe that aim: critical thinking as defined by the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal and a stage model of adolescent and adult intellectual development described as reflective judgment. In a 2 × 4 design, 119 women students at four educational levels were matched on high and low extremes of critical thinking scores and were compared on the basis of their scores on the Reflective Judgment Interview.The results indicate: (a) a significant main effect for educational level: students at higher educational levels achieved higher scores on the reflective judgment measure; (b) a main effect for critical thinking: high critical thinking subjects out-performed low critical thinking subjects on the Reflective Judgment Interview; and (c) while low critical thinking subjects were homogeneously low in reflective judgment levels, high critical thinking subjects had significantly greater variability of Reflective Judgment Interview scores.     

Immigrant Parent Legal Status,Parent–Child Relationships,and Child Social Emotional Wellbeing: A Middle Childhood Perspective

Immigrant parent legal status is an important, but understudied aspect of children’s developmental contexts that can affect their social emotional wellbeing. The present study used the Behavioral and Emotional Screening System to explore the influence of parents’ legal status on the social emotional wellbeing of 7–10 year old U.S.-born children of immigrant parents from Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Central America. Aspects of parent–child relationships, measured via the Parent–Child Relationship Questionnaire , were also explored as potential moderators. One hundred and eighty families were recruited via school and community outreach. Forty-nine percent of participating families were mixed-status. Results indicate that children in mixed-status families experience higher levels of anxiety, but lower levels of hyperactivity, and that parent–child communication moderates the relationship between parent legal status and the child’s hyperactivity. Results further indicate overall high levels of functioning among all families, regardless of parent legal status, across several domains of parent–child relationships. Findings suggest the importance of assessing for internalizing symptoms among children in mixed-status families as well as the potential for building on family strengths in the design of programs and policies to support immigrant families.