Melanie Penny

Graduate Student in Sociology and Social Policy

Biographical Note

Melanie Rose Penny hails from Compton, CA, and has arrived at Harvard after spending five years on the Stanford University farm. She received her bachelor's degree in Political Science in 2002, and spent most of 2003 working as a research assistant in Stanford's Departments of Communication and Psychology, studying a wide range of race-related issues. Her senior thesis dealt with the effect of the news media on the creation of criminal justice policy and the resultant disproportionate incarceration of African-American youth. Melanie's many research interests revolve around the issue of perception and the way in which popular perceptions can significantly influence the content of social acts. Currently, she is studying how neighborhood-level perceptions may affect the quality of life experienced within various neighborhood contexts. Although she is most frequently consumed by the weight of pressing social issues, in her lighter moments, Ms. Penny enjoys partaking of the comedic stylings and social commentary of Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy (the early years).

10/03/2008

Research Interests

Social Organization, Perception, Law and Society, Race, Media, Stigma

Previous Degrees

Stanford University, BA, Political Science

Qualifying Paper Title

The Perceptual Basis of Social Organization

Committee

William J. Wilson, Robert Sampson, Wendy Mendes (Department of Psychology)

Abstract

Traditional literature on the subject of social organization argues that it is the condition of being organized that produces positive community outcomes. These theories strongly assert that neighborhood characteristics matter, only insomuch as they determine the organizational state that a community is able to achieve. However, if neighborhood attributes are significant determinants of the level of social organization achieved by the community, theorists fail to specify why communities with ostensibly identical characteristics may nonetheless realize divergent levels of social organization—and eventually outcomes. The research I present argues that scholars must consider the factors that influence residents’ willingness to engage within their communities, instead of narrowly focusing on neighborhood traits believed to impact their ability to become organized. In this paper I will use experimental survey methods to argue that the decisions to engage in community social organization are not only dependent on objective neighborhood characteristics, but also influenced by normative community evaluations transmitted across individuals.

Papers available in Portable Document Format (PDF)

Miscellaneous Additional Information

Oral Exam Topic

Neighborhood Social Organization

Conferences at Which I've Made Presentations

Eastern Sociological Society
Inequality Summer Institute, Harvard University

Contact

617-496-5794 (FAX)