Faculty Directory

Patrick McQuillan

Retired Professor

Photo of Patrick McQuillan

Patrick McQuillan

Ph.D.

Contact

Email: mcquilpa@bc.edu

ORCID

Education

  • Ph.D., Brown University
  • M.A., Wesleyan University
  • B.A., Wesleyan University

Research Interests

Urban Education, Qualitative Research Methods, Complexity Theories

Curriculum Vitae

Department

TCS Teaching, Curriculum, and Society

Profile

Pat McQuillan has studied the education of middle schoolers, high schoolers, and educators themselves for decades. His expertise includes education reform, urban school leadership, complexity theory, qualitative research, methods for teaching history, and education that emphasizes social justice and wellbeing.

McQuillan earned a doctorate in Cultural Anthropology from Brown University and completed his bachelor鈥檚 and master鈥檚 degrees at Wesleyan University. He has authored dozens of publications, including recent studies on using Twitter in the classroom. He is currently following the work of four principals from the Lynch Leadership Academy and assessing their performance through the lens of complexity theory.

Wherever he works with educators鈥攁t 艾可直播 College and other institutions鈥擬cQuillan uses his passion for curriculum and evaluation to improve learning and teaching and to cultivate lives of meaning and purpose. One example: the action research he conducted at Manual High School in Denver, where he helped 艾可直播and administrators revamp instruction, assessment, and site-based management.

Publications

  • McQuillan, P. J. (2020). Quantifying the complex adaptive system metaphor: Generating the educational transformation heuristic. International Journal for Complexity in Education, 1(2): 95-120.
  • Agostinelli, A., &聽McQuillan, P.J.聽 (2020).聽聽Accounting for Bilingual Learners in the History Classroom: A Sociolinguistic Case Study of Teachers in Training. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the New England Educational Research Organization, Portsmouth, NH.
  • McQuillan, P.J.聽 (2019).聽聽Quantifying the Metaphor: Looking at Educational Change Through the Lens of the Complex Adaptive System. Paper presented at the Conference on Complex Systems, Nanyang Technological Institute, Singapore, October, 3.
  • McQuillan, P.J., Walsh, M. & Raczek, A.聽 (2019).聽 Using the Complex Adaptive System as an Analytic Heuristic. Paper presented at the Complexity Symposium: Exploring the Possibilities at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, 艾可直播 College, Chestnut Hill, MA, September 13.聽
  • McQuillan, P.J., Wortham, S. 聽& Madres, J. 聽(2019).聽聽Educating for 鈥淟ives of Meaning and Purpose鈥�: Emerging Opportunities for Catholic (and Secular) Higher Education. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Meeting, Toronto, Canada.聽
  • Zito, N. & McQuillan, P.J. (2010) Cheating themselves out of an education: Assignments that promote higher-order thinking and honesty in middle school. Middle School Journal, November, pp. 6-16.
  • Cochran-Smith, M., Shakman, K., Jong, C., Barnatt, J., Terrell, D., & McQuillan, P. (2009). Good and just teaching: The case for social justice. American Journal of Education, 115(3).
  • McQuillan, P.J. (2008). Understanding Small-School Reform Through the Lens of Complexity Theory: It鈥檚 鈥淕ood to Think With.鈥� Teachers College Record, 110( 9): 1772-1801.
  • McQuillan, P.J. (2005). Pitfalls and Possibilities: A Comparative Analysis of Student Empowerment. American Educational Research Journal, 42(4), 639-670.
  • McQuillan, P.J. & Englert, K.S. (2001). The Return to Neighborhood Schools, Concentrated Poverty, and Educational Opportunity: An Agenda for Reform. Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, 28(4), 739-770.
  • McQuillan, P.J. (2001). The Assumptions of School Accountability: A Challenge to Prevailing Wisdom from an Urban High School. Journal of Research in Education, 11(1), 1-9.
  • McQuillan, P.J. (1998). Educational Opportunity in an Urban American High School: A Cultural Analysis. Albany: SUNY Press, 243 pp.
  • McQuillan, P.J. (1997). Humanizing the Comprehensive High School. Educational Administration Quarterly 33, 644-682.
  • Muncey, D.E. & McQuillan, P.J. (1996). Reform and Resistance in Schools and Classrooms: An Ethnographic View of the Coalition of Essential Schools. New Haven: Yale University Press, 319 pp. (Also translated into Chinese and published by East China Normal University Press, Shanghai, China.)
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