Morality Politics vs. Political Economy: The Case of School-Based Health Centers*

Objective. Scholars continue to debate whether morally charged political issues constitute a distinct type of policy question or produce essentially the same political dynamic as public controversies lacking an overt moral dimension. The debate will not be resolved until scholars test the determinants of putative morality policies with predictors drawn both from morality politics theory and from the socioeconomic factors that account for the distribution of many other public policies. This study reports such a test. Methods. We analyze data from our national survey of directors of school-based health centers. We use ordinary least squares regression models to predict the level of reproductive health care services provided to adolescents. Results. Service levels were influenced not only by cultural considerations, as morality politics theory would anticipate, but also by the same socioeconomic forces that account for policy levels in other domains. Conclusions. Policy for morality issues appears different from that for nonmorality issues but less distinctive than commonly imagined.