What does it mean to ‘live’ and ‘die’? A cross‐linguistic analysis of parent–child conversations in English and Indonesian

Previous work on children's intuitive knowledge about the natural world has documented their difficulty in acquiring an overarching concept of biological life that includes plants as well as humans and non‐human animals. It has also suggested that the acquisition of fundamental biological concepts like alive and die may be influenced by the language used to describe them, as evidenced by differences between English‐ and Indonesian‐speaking children's performance in tasks involving these concepts. Here, we examine one particularly important source of linguistic information available to children during this acquisition process: everyday conversations with their parents. We take a cross‐linguistic approach in analysing the evidence available to English‐ and Indonesian‐speaking children as they acquire meanings for words corresponding to the concepts alive and die . Our analysis illustrates that young children acquiring English and Indonesian are faced with distinct problems, but that parental input in both languages does little to support the acquisition of broad, inclusive biological concepts.     

ILLUSTRATING FEMINIST THEORY

Feminist theory holds that many of the pathological behaviors observed in patients result from their position in the social hierarchy. The goals of the demonstration detailed in this article are to show the impact of current gender roles on the psychological well-being of women and men and to generate understanding and discussion of the problems that relative status can create in the therapeutic relationship. This teaching demonstration draws parallels between the Zimbardo (1971) prison experiment and the impact that assignment to low-and high-power roles can have on the psychological health of women and men. Students are asked to rate men and women on some of the diagnostic criteria that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) associates with Axis I and II diagnoses. The students watch a video of Zimbardo's prison study and then rate the prisoners and guards. This demonstration provides another explanation for gender patterns in psychopathology by demonstrating that psychologically healthy White males will develop different patterns of psychopathology depending on whether they are placed in a dominant or subordinate role. When placed in the subordinate role, they exhibit behaviors typically seen in women clients; when placed in a dominant role they exhibit behaviors commonly associated with male clients. This exercise demonstrates the unhealthy nature of the gender roles for both women and men.     

An indigenous community mental health service on the Tohono O'odham (Papago) Indian reservation: Seventeen years later

The status of a fully indigenous mental health program serviced and controlled by the Tohono O'odham (Papago) Indian tribe is reviewed from the perspective of its 17-year history. The program functions in large measure in a crisis intervention model, with suicidal or acutely disturbed cases being most frequent. However, a whole range of disorders and ages are seen. Traditional Medicine Men and Women are often used as consultants, as are some professionals. In recent years child sex abuse and abuse of drugs among youth are prominent problems. The program experienced problems of obtaining services off reservations for patients in need, and in establishing credibility of the Indian Mental Health workers with the outside service providers.