The modernity of premodern Islam in contemporary Daghestan

This ethnographic essay investigates the relations between past and present forms of Islam in the north Caucasian Republic of Daghestan. Conversations culled from fieldwork in Daghestani urban and rural spaces are used to elucidate the cultural, religious, and linguistic diversity of life in this region. Ethnographies in a bookstore, a shrine to the Imam Shamil, and a scholarly archive in Makhachkala unfold against the historical background of Daghestan’s long-standing encounter with the Arabo-Islamic world. The essay explores how the post-Soviet turn to post-secular Islam represents an alternative to colonialism and a new way of making meaning in the present. It is intended as a contribution to Islamic studies, modernity theory, and post-Soviet Union area studies.     

Feasibility and Preliminary Outcomes of a School-Based Mindfulness Intervention for Urban Youth

Youth in underserved, urban communities are at risk for a range of negative outcomes related to stress, including social-emotional difficulties, behavior problems, and poor academic performance. Mindfulness-based approaches may improve adjustment among chronically stressed and disadvantaged youth by enhancing self-regulatory capacities. This paper reports findings from a pilot randomized controlled trial assessing the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary outcomes of a school-based mindfulness and yoga intervention. Four urban public schools were randomized to an intervention or wait-list control condition (n = 97 fourth and fifth graders, 60.8% female). It was hypothesized that the 12-week intervention would reduce involuntary stress responses and improve mental health outcomes and social adjustment. Stress responses, depressive symptoms, and peer relations were assessed at baseline and post-intervention. Findings suggest the intervention was attractive to students, teachers, and school administrators and that it had a positive impact on problematic responses to stress including rumination, intrusive thoughts, and emotional arousal.     

An evaluation of crisis hotline outcomes. Part 1: Nonsuicidal crisis callers

The effectiveness of telephone crisis services/hotlines, examining proximal outcomes as measured by changes in callers' crisis state from the beginning to the end of their calls to eight centers in the U.S. and intermediate outcomes within 3 weeks of their calls, was evaluated. Between March 2003 and July 2004, 1,617 crisis callers were assessed during their calls and 801 (49.5%) participated in the followup assessment. Significant decreases in callers' crisis states and hopelessness were found during the course of the telephone session, with continuing decreases in crisis states and hopelessness in the following weeks. A majority of callers were provided with referrals and/or plans of actions for their concerns and approximately one third of those provided with mental health referrals had followed up with the referral by the time of the follow-up assessment. While crisis service staff coded these callers as nonsuicidal, at follow-up nearly 12% of them reported having suicidal thoughts either during or since their call to the center. The need to conduct suicide risk assessments with crisis callers and to identify strategies to improve referral follow-up is highlighted.     

Factors in the assessment of suicidality in youth

Suicide remains a leading cause of death among youth, and suicide ideation and behavior are relatively common in both normal and clinical populations. Clinicians working with young people must assess for the presence of suicidal ideation, suicidal behavior, and other risk factors, in order to determine the level of risk. This paper provides the clinician with a summary of risk factors for youth suicide, as well as providing standardized terminology to enhance assessment of suicidal ideation and behavior.     

Visual search,complex backgrounds,mental counters,and eye movements

For 30 days, three Ss searched for 1, 5, or 10 targets (N), any one of which had to occur once (as in past research). twice, or four times (FREQ). The N=1 and N=5 items were subsets of N=10 items. When FREQ=1. Ss searched longer for 5 targets than for 1 or 10 targets. This nonintuitive result was due to (a) Ss searching for all 10 targets even at N=5, and (b) the reported “pop-out effect” of the 5 target items as well as the other 5 items in the N=10 set. When FREQ > 1, Ss could search for only 2-3 targets at once, because they could not keep mental counters on more items. The presence of a complex background merely added a constant to search time. The main change in eye movements, with 30 days practice, was to reduce greatly the number of eye fixations, thus suggesting an increase in the useful fidld of view and/or a change in search strategy. A speculative model, based upon two comparison processes, was suggested to explain the results.