Political Science

The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 mandated all schools districts with federal meal programs to establish school local wellness policies (LWP), to be implemented in the 2006-07 school year, in order to provide standards for nutrition education, physical activity, a plan to measure implementation and the assurance that all foods in the school environment were not less restrictive than the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Farm to School is a program that has broad appeal and a growing record of success to introduce healthy nutrition information and healthy food choices through curriculum and many different types of hands-on activities. The question in this research project is whether the Iowa elementary schools that have a Farm to School program find them to be a part of their strategy to meet the objectives of the school LWP.

A survey was sent to all Iowa elementary school principals to: confirm the presence of a school LWP and their compliance with all the objectives, to ask about Farm to School participation and its impact on the school LWP, questions about the school environment and culture, and demographic information.

The data received from respondents who have a Farm to School program in their school confirm they believe it positively impacts compliance and implementation of their school LWP.

This research sought to determine how and if political polarization is affecting behavior on Facebook. An online survey was constructed to measure levels of polarization, offline political activity, online political activity, and active avoidance behaviors on Facebook. The survey was conducted over 4 weeks. I found that those who encounter a higher amount of political content and discussions on Facebook also reported a higher number of active avoidance behaviors over all. This group was also more likely to report unFriending someone because of something that Friend posted related to political or social issues.

Those with a higher number of reported encounters with political content on Facebook reported a higher level of self-moderation as well, being more likely to delete one of their own posts when that post resulted in disagreeable or offensive comments from others. Those who reported greater frequency of political discussions on Facebook are more likely to delete comments from Friends that they find disagreeable or offensive on their own posts.

The higher the intensity of ideology the more likely respondents were to discuss politics on Facebook and encounter or engage with political content on Facebook. Those with stronger political views were more likely to engage in political discussions and more likely to encounter political content on Facebook. Those with a higher level of perceived political knowledge were more likely to discuss politics and more likely to encounter political content on Facebook.

Those with a higher intensity of ideology, stronger political views, and higher levels of perceived political knowledge discuss politics more frequently and engage in more political activities offline.

This thesis attempts to answer what causes dissent in state supreme courts. It also approaches the normative questions of whether dissent in state supreme courts is good or bad for democracy. Within I review relevant literature on state supreme courts, judicial voting behavior and dissent. I also conduct my own study of state supreme courts. I find that limited resources affect nonconsensual opinion writing on state supreme courts. I do this by creating an OLS regression model showing that the employment of law clerks causes more nonconsensual opinions and a larger caseload causes less nonconsensual opinion writing. I also find that more dissent is consistent with the democratic tradition, as it enables more voices to be heard.

The current study assessed improvement in healthy lifestyles of third-grade children from Iowa schools who participated in nutrition education lessons provided by the Iowa Department of Public Health’s Building and Strengthening Iowa Community Support for Nutrition and Physical Activity (BASICS) program in 2009. The program encourages children to eat more fruits and vegetables as snacks and to be active every day. Autoregressive models and logistic regression analysis results showed that the BASICS program improved awareness of the “Pick a better snack™ & Act” campaign among children and their parents. The program also led to children’s increased preferences toward fruits, vegetables, and low-fat milk products, and to parents’ increased willingness to offer healthy foods to their children. The program stimulated children’s desires to be physically active and parents’ attentiveness toward children’s physical activity. These results indicated that the children influenced their parents’ recognition of campaign materials and how often their parents provided them with fruits and vegetables. Increasing parent age negatively influenced the probability of children receiving free and reduced-price lunch, reflecting the better economic situation of families with older parents.

This study incorporated institutional characteristics (e.g., Carnegie type, selectivity) and resource allocations (e.g., instructional expenditures, student affairs expenditures) into a statistical model to predict undergraduate graduation rates. Instructional expenditures, library expenditures, and a number of institutional classification variables were significant predictors of graduation rates. Based on these results, recommendations as well as warranted cautions are included about allocating academic financial resources to optimize graduation rates

Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) intakes in the United States (US) lag behind dietary recommendations despite their positive nutrition profile, health benefits for reducing chronic disease risk, and inclusion in nutrition assistance programs. Low-income groups, including Hispanics, have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and some cancers. Hispanic dietary quality and bean consumption may decline with increasing acculturation. Intakes at recommended levels could improve health in all vulnerable low-income populations. The study objectives were to describe dry and canned bean preferences, consumption frequency, and attitudes among low-income Hispanic and non-Hispanic white women, and to assess if these characteristics differed by ethnicity and acculturation level among the Latinas. A convenience sample of 158 women, aged 18–65 years, completed a written survey in English or Spanish at two healthcare clinics, one Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children office, and five County Extension nutrition education and outreach programs in Iowa. Less acculturated Latinas consumed beans more often, preferred dry to canned, bought in bulk, valued color and shape in dry bean selection, and held less positive attitudes toward canned beans in contrast to bicultural/more acculturated and non-Hispanic white women. Ethnicity and acculturation level have a role in varying purchase patterns and attitudes regarding dry and canned beans. Culturally-held differences should be considered in nutrition programs and leveraged to increase consumption and improve health.

This paper evaluates the effect of three key mechanisms—state capacity, ethnic grievances, and third party assistance—on the probability of civil war onset from 1960 to 1999. Using cross-national data logistic analysis for 160 countries, I found that states with poor governance quality are more prone to civil conflict. This hypothesis is tested and confirmed using Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and tax ratio as two indicators for the state’s administrative quality. Second, ethnic grievances are measured by the degree of economic and political disparities across ethnic groups (horizontal inequality). In contrast, to several recent influential civil war researches, namely Collier and Hoeffler (2004), and Fearon and Latin (2003), I show that political and economic inequalities between groups actually increase the probability of civil conflict. Countries with large groups face economic and political discrimination along ethnic lines are more likely to experience internal conflict, as oppose to countries do not discriminate against minorities. Lastly, investigating the relationship between third party assistance and the risk of civil conflict onset, I use data for U.S. economic and military aid to foreign countries. However, the data failed to reach statistical significance. This may be due to lack of data for other third parties like the former USSR which actively provided economic and military aid to various countries opposing US interests during the Cold War. In the final section, I present a case study of the civil war in Iraq and Syria, which created environment for ISIS to emerge. The case study provides a brief history about the origin of the group from 2010-14, but the primary goal is to provide an explanatory argument of how each of the three mechanisms played out in Iraq and Syria’s civil wars respectively.