Doctoral Dissertation Research: Federal Policy, Local Dynamics, and National School Lunch Programs

博士论文研究：联邦政策、当地动态和国家学校午餐计划

• 批准号: 1519191
• 负责人: Laura Enriquez
• 金额: $ 1.11万
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-05-01 至 2016-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1519191&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Federal; Policy

Skyrocketing childhood obesity rates in the United States have helped fuel mounting public concern about the health and well being of America's children. Efforts to address childhood obesity have increasingly targeted improvements to federal school food programs that provide critical nutrition to hundreds of thousands of children, including many low-income, minority youth who have been disproportionately affected by obesity. In particular, the landmark 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) marked the first substantial changes to federal school food policy in recent years, and a growing grassroots farm-to-school movement has taken hold in cafeterias throughout the country. While previous research has traced the rich and often controversial history and development of the nation's school food programs, the time is ripe for in-depth analysis of school food politics in the aftermath of the groundbreaking changes to federal policy and increasing local school food reform activism. To this end, this dissertation explores the varying impact of the 2010 HHFKA on local school food landscapes and the complex realities of how select school districts are negotiating the terrain of school food politics in light of childhood obesity concerns. In doing so, this research contributes to our understanding of how federal policy affects school food politics on a local level, and how these dynamics affect subsequent actions and outcomes in the battle against childhood obesity. Scholars of policy processes argue that federal policies, like the HHFKA, can have lasting top-down impacts on a variety of social and political dynamics. This literature, however, tends to neglect the role of state and local actors in the implementation of federal policies, and the role of bottom-up grassroots social change efforts on policy outcomes. Through a mixed methods design, this dissertation fills this lacuna in the literature by 1) quantitatively examining how school food programs across the country vary in nature as a result of differing local contexts in the aftermath of the 2010 federal legislation, and 2) qualitatively exploring the 2010 policy impact on the local landscape of school food politics through case studies of three California school districts. Drawing on analyses of national school food data, and fieldwork consisting of interviews, observations, and archival document research, this research provides an unprecedented opportunity to expand our knowledge of contemporary school food dynamics and to contribute comprehensive scientific information to critical policy discussions surrounding childhood health and nutrition.

美国儿童肥胖率的飙升加剧了公众对美国儿童健康和福祉的担忧。解决儿童肥胖症的努力越来越有针对性地改善联邦学校的食物计划，这些计划为数十万儿童提供关键营养，其中包括许多受肥胖症影响不成比例的低收入少数族裔青年。特别是，具有里程碑意义的2010年《健康无饥饿儿童法案》(HHFKA)标志着近年来联邦学校食品政策的首次重大变化，一场日益壮大的从农场到学校的草根运动已经在全国各地的食堂扎根。虽然之前的研究已经追溯了美国学校食品计划丰富且往往有争议的历史和发展，但在联邦政策发生突破性变化和地方学校食品改革激进主义日益高涨之后，深入分析学校食品政治的时机已经成熟。为此，本文探讨了2010年HHFKA对当地学校食物格局的不同影响，以及选定的学区如何根据儿童肥胖问题协商学校食物政治的复杂现实。通过这样做，这项研究有助于我们理解联邦政策如何影响地方层面的学校食物政治，以及这些动态如何影响抗击儿童肥胖的后续行动和结果。研究政策过程的学者认为，像HHFKA这样的联邦政策可以对各种社会和政治动态产生持久的自上而下的影响。然而，这些文献往往忽略了州和地方行为者在联邦政策实施中的作用，以及自下而上的基层社会变革努力对政策结果的作用。通过混合方法设计，本文填补了文献中的这一空白：1)定量检验了2010年联邦立法后不同地方背景下全国学校食品计划在性质上的差异，2)通过加州三个学区的案例研究，定性地探索了2010年政策对学校食品政治地方格局的影响。基于对全国学校食品数据的分析，以及由访谈、观察和档案文件研究组成的实地工作，这项研究提供了一个前所未有的机会，以扩大我们对当代学校食品动态的了解，并为围绕儿童健康和营养的关键政策讨论提供全面的科学信息。