Melissa Osborne, PhD
She/They, Associate Professor
Office
Location
AH 532
About
PhD University of Chicago, 2019
MA University of Chicago, 2015
BA Reed College, 2013
AA Umpqua Community College, 2010
My primary research centers on social mobility, inequality, and the role that organizations play in shaping individuals’ pathways and experiences. I have published research that explores this dynamic in the contexts of education, social services, law, and medicine.
I am the author of Polished: College, Class, and the Burdens of Social Mobility (University of Chicago Press). While college initiates a major transition in all students’ lives, low-income and first-generation students attending elite schools are often entering entirely new worlds. Amid the financial and academic challenges of adapting to college, their emotional lives, too, undergo a transformation. Surrounded by peers from different classes and cultural backgrounds, they are faced with an impossible choice: turn away from their former lives to blend in or stay true to themselves and remain on the outside.
An ethnography that draws on in-depth interviews with one hundred and fifty first-generation and low-income students across eighteen elite institutions, Polished uncovers the hidden consequences of the promise of social mobility in today’s educational landscape and reveals how the very support designed to propel first-generation students forward can unexpectedly reshape their identities, often putting them at odds with their peers and families. Without direct institutional support, this emotional journey can lead to alienation, mental health challenges, poor academic outcomes, and difficult choices between upward mobility or maintaining authenticity and community. Whether you’re an educator, advocate, or student, Polished provides a powerful perspective on the uncharted challenges of social mobility and personal identity during college. Read more about and order Polished here.
I was a first-generation student from a working class background that started my academic trajectory as a non-traditional adult learner in community college. My journey from that starting point to becoming a professor at Western is something I am happy to chat about. I am here to support students in the sociology department and across our campus community! Feel free to reach out to me via email!
Research Interests
- Social mobility, inequality and stratification, education, organizations, social theory, culture, qualitative methods
Current Courses
Sociology of Education
Sociology of Higher Education
Classical Sociological Theory
Homelessness and Housing Policy
Sociological Cinema (Summer)
Community Engaged Research methods (Capstone)
Special Topics in Education (Capstone)
Understanding the Social World Through Games (Honors)
Selected Publications
Osborne, Melissa. 2024. Polished: College, Class, and the Burdens of Social Mobility. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Alexandra Brewer, Melissa Osborne, Anna Mueller, Arjun Dayal, Daniel O’Conner, and Vineet Arora. 2020. “Who Gets the Benefit of the Doubt? Gender, Role Expectations, and Assessment in Physician Education.” American Sociological Review. 85(2):247-270.
Abrutyn Seth, Mueller Anna, Osborne Melissa. 2020. “Rekeying Cultural Scripts for Youth Suicide: How Social Networks Facilitate Suicide Diffusion and Suicide Clusters Following Exposure to Suicide.” Society and Mental Health. 10(2):112-135.
Melissa Osborne. 2018. “Who Gets ‘Housing First’?: Eligibility Determination in an Era of Housing First Homelessness.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 48(3):402-428.
Anna Mueller, Seth Abrutyn, and Melissa Osborne. 2017. “Durkheim’s “Suicide” in the Zombie Apocalypse.” Contexts. 16(2):44-49.
Anna Mueller, Tania Jenkins, Melissa Osborne, Arjun Dayal, Daniel O’Conner, and Vineet Arora. 2017. “Gender Differences in Attending Physicians' Feedback for Residents in an Emergency Medical Residency Program: A Qualitative Analysis.” Journal of Graduate Medical Education. 9(5): 577-585.
Forrest Stuart, Amada Armenta, and Melissa Osborne. 2015. “Legal Control of Marginal Groups.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science. 11:235-54.