This study aims to gain a better understanding of the potential influence that perceived levels of attractiveness impose on individuals’ perceptions of male and female candidates’ competency and favorability. I utilized a quasi-experimental design that had a total of 603 respondents, all of which were current students at Arizona State University. The experimental design of the study consisted of the same pre-test, and post-test questionnaire, with a randomly assigned experimental group viewing a video regarding the halo effect, and a randomly assigned control group viewing a neutral video with no comment on attractiveness and its inherent effects. The results demonstrate insignificant findings in regard to candidate favorability and attractiveness, but one significant finding revealed itself in regard to competency. Hypothesis 6 (H6) identified an unexpected, yet statistically significant finding when concerning the ‘above average’ female candidate and respondents’ perception of her competency. This suggests that individuals may be more inclined to favorably perceive the competency of an attractive female candidate when they are aware of their implicit biases that accompany increased levels of attractiveness. This study offers insight into whether perceived level of attractiveness affects evaluations of male and female politicians.

This study seeks to understand the role that media coverage of the Red for Ed movement and related teachers strike in Arizona had on college students’ views toward the issues of teacher pay and education funding. I conducted a survey of 448 students from Arizona State University who were first administered a pre-test gauging their initial views on teacher pay and education funding. Participants were then divided into three groups, with the first group watching a video montage of Red for Ed media clips that contained a minute-long clip showing the average annual teacher salary level in Arizona. The second group watched an identical video montage as the first group but without the average teacher salary clip, while the third group watched an unrelated and politically insignificant video. Participants were then given the same series of questions after watching their respective stimulus videos to gauge post-test views. The results show that students exposed to media coverage that showed what teachers make on an annual basis saw significant decreases in what they thought teachers should earn and how much the state should devote to education funding in comparison to those who saw similar media coverage of Red for Ed but did not see what teachers earn. In contrast, the latter group saw no significant difference compared to those who were not exposed to any media coverage of Red for Ed, challenging the widely-touted “protest paradigm” trap often highlighted in current academic literature. Finally, the study shows that while ideology plays a role in support for higher teacher pay and willingness to raise taxes to fund education, liberal students showed no overall difference in how much they would fund education in comparison to moderate and conservative students. This study, therefore, provides insight into how interactions and portrayals in the media can influence public opinion towards teachers protests and their goals, as well as how educators can adapt to this dynamic by adopting specific protest strategies to more effectively build political and public support.

Over the last 30 years, the public has become somewhat less willing to accept the “feminist” label. However, most Americans indicate support for general feminist ideals. In fact, many of these ideals have become so prevalent in American culture that they are not considered feminist anymore. This thesis will examine the reason behind this disparity and analyze where public opinion began to shift. The disparity between the definition of feminism and the definition perceived by the public will be explored along with the idea that the American people still want and need a “feminist movement,” but that its current state is not resonating with the majority of the public.

This study intends to understand the extent to which media coverage of the sexual assault and/or harassment allegations against federally elected officials during the #MeToo Movement impacted male and female college students' trust in government. To answer this question, we conducted a survey of 377 Arizona State University students. Participants were administered a pre-test gauging their experience with issues of sexual assault and harassment, their awareness of sexual assault campaigns and their trust in government to uphold their civil liberties. A video montage of #MeToo media coverage that reported the accusations made against federally elected officials followed the pre-test for the experimental group. The control group viewed a video unrelated to the #MeToo movement. Participants were then given the same survey after watching the stimulus video. Our findings show that females have more experience with issues of sexual assault and harassment and are more aware of sexual assault campaigns than males. Most notably, our results determined that females were generally impacted at a higher level than their male counterparts after watching media coverage of the #MeToo movement. This study provides insight into the extent to which the #MeToo movement has had an impact on attitudes and perceptions of rape culture as well as government accountability amongst male and female college students. It also reaffirms the urgent need to increase male engagement on these issues and provides evidence supporting future research.

This paper analyzes how varying redistricting types—state legislature, advisory commissions, political appointee commissions, and independent commissions—correlate with margins of victory. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project’s statistical tests are used to classify state legislatures that have allegedly conducted partisan gerrymandering, and this study performs a pre-test post-test analysis via graphical and tabular interpretation of election data available from CQ Press’ Voting and Elections Collection. The use of GIS technology in the 2000’s combined with research to “sometimes pack but never crack” in the 2010’s and predictable voting behavior from party polarization has accelerated gerrymandering to unprecedented heights. Partisan redistricting results in landslide victories and less districts won overall for the opposing party.
Solutions to resolve gerrymandering are outlined, such as by voters lobbying state legislatures or issuing ballot initiatives, for the Supreme Court to establish gerrymandering criteria based upon statistical tests, or from changing House elections themselves, such as moving from a winner take all system to a proportional system, or having boundaries based on municipal and county boundaries as opposed to the one person one vote requirement. Independent commissions demonstrate promise in preventing gerrymandering as shown in Arizona, however a longer-term study in the future is necessary to validate its effectiveness on increasing the competitiveness of elections. Arizona has reduced margins of victories after switching redistricting authorities, however alternate “third-party” redistricting authorities—political appointee commissions and advisory commissions, are not very different than state legislatures due to political connections with these redistricting types. The purpose of this study is to examine an aspect of gerrymandering that is simple for voters to understand and decide for themselves which redistricting type is best for their state.

This past summer, Pew Research Center conducted a ten-question survey to test Americans' knowledge on current events. Questions ranged from how Zika virus is transmitted, to the name of the current president of France. A majority of the participants were unable to answer half of the questions correctly (Pew Research Center, 2017). While previous Pew knowledge surveys saw a majority of Americans answer only one quarter of the questions correctly (2014), it is clear that Americans today are still not completely up-to-date on current affairs. Along with Americans lacking knowledge of current affairs, the recent election saw the rise in accusations of "fake news." These calls inspired me to undertake my thesis project to try to answer the question: "does fake news actually impact the public's policy preferences, and if so, by how much?" While studies have been conducted to test the relationship between policy misperceptions and policy preferences, there have not been many studies released to directly test the impact of incorrect information on policy preferences. The underlying purpose of this study is to test how introduction of new information, particularly falsehoods, influences policy preferences. Specifically, I focus on policy preferences related to anthropogenic climate change . Any valid research that seeks to analyze the effect of political information on policy preferences needs to starts by discovering how much the public knows about the particular policy issue that the researcher is focusing on. Without explicitly saying as much, all of the research on the subject that I have read has come to the same conclusion: American's are indeed politically unaware on a wide array of issues. The areas of policy that Americans lack knowledge on are widespread: education (Howell and West, 2009), welfare (Gilens, 2001), the war in Iraq (Berinsky, 2007; Kull, 2003), and facts about political candidates (Nyhan and Reifler, 2012) are just some of the issues that Americans seem to know little about. Literature discussed in the following section shows how researchers have tried to understand how policy knowledge impacts policy opinions. Researchers primarily collected their data either one of two ways: by analyzing existing survey data or by conducting their own survey.

The purpose of this experiment was to test how different nutrition supplementation would affect honey bee lifespan. The use of sugar syrup and pollen as well as protein, probiotic, and vitamin supplement were the independent variables in this experiment. The average lifespan of a honey bee (Apis mellifera) is around 30 days depending on climate and time of year (Amdam & Omholt, 2002). This experiment yielded results that would require further testing but was able to conclude that a diet of sugar syrup is not sufficient for honey bees, whereas pollen and probiotic supplement showed positive effects on average lifespan. Protein supplement showed no statistically significant advantage or disadvantage to pollen when it comes to short term supplementation. Considering the importance of nutrition on honey bee lifespan, this paper also explores specific ways legislation can aid in pollinator population decline, considering the impacts of colonies without access to a healthy diet.

In Arizona's early history, Females garnered more independence than most other women in the United States because they were forced to build a completely new life in settlements with little to no infrastructure. Now, Arizona has achieved a level of equality that no other state has yet to achieve in regard to gender representation. Yet, we have yet to achieve total equity. This paper looks to analyze responses that female senators from the Arizona State Legislature gave while being interviewed by the author. With questions derived from previous research conducted on women in politics at the state and federal level, this paper will delve into the personal experiences of six female senators. Although their personal narratives differ, their stories seem to reflect a collective tie that unites the female members together, beyond party allegiance. Each of the responses given by the senators had some aspects that showed trends supporting the majority of the hypotheses. Moving forward, in order to achieve 50% equality, two more senators would need to be elected and replace male senators.

Throughout the last two decades, the topic of wartime sexual violence has received significant attention from the international community. Despite honest intentions, this recent focus, by way of the framing the issue has received, has produced a range of unintended negative consequences. These consequences fall into one of four overarching themes: a) effects upon victims, b) issue displacement, c) competition among NGOs, and d) incentives for combatants. Unfortunately, the world is largely unaware or unwilling to confront the problems caused by their well-intended activism. If left unnoticed, these unintended effects threaten to maintain, and perhaps exacerbate, the prevalence of wartime sexual violence. The international community would be wise to acknowledge the results of its misguided attempts of activism and explore new strategies to avoid previous pitfalls.

Theories of resistance have been investigated by various researchers as an explanation for student empowerment, achievement, and activism. Similar research on youth empowerment has been conducted with Critical Race Theory and the development of culturally relevant curriculums in classrooms. Culturally relevant pedagogy has been studied by many due to its ability to foster student empowerment and transform students into agents of social change within their communities, allowing them to pursue opportunities they hadn't considered otherwise. However, there is not much research that studies how culturally relevant pedagogy and culturally relevant school programs foster student activism. This study focuses on assessing how the culturally relevant curriculum fosters student activism within the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson, Arizona. Following the changes made after HB2281, which temporarily banned the program. It was reinstated and renamed Ethnic Studies following the court ruling, Arce v Douglas. Using theories of resistance and activism, data gathered from the Ethnic Studies course through student surveys and interviews was analyzed, in addition to a brief content analysis of the course reading lists. Though focusing on community engagement, political/social justice awareness, and concepts of identity, interview and survey data demonstrated significant levels of student resistance. Further research will confirm if this program fosters student activism.