Edward L. McDill (Ph.D., sociology, Vanderbilt University) is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Johns Hopkins University and Principal Research Scientist at the Center for Social Organization of Schools (CSOS). He is founding director (1966-1969) and co-director (1976-1993) of CSOS. He also served as Chair for the Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, from 1970 through 1985. For the past thirty-five years Dr. McDill’s primary research interests have been in the sociology of education, with a focus on how the formal and informal organizational properties of schools influence the cognitive and affective development of students. In the past decade he has concentrated much of his research on how the current American educational reform movement affects the academic and personal development of disadvantaged students. His primary publication in this area is (with G. Natriello and A.M. Pallas) Schooling Disadvantaged Students: Racing Against Catastrophe, Teachers College Press, 1990. 

McDill has authored/coauthored a substantial number of journal articles and six books/monographs. He is currently working as part of a CSOS research team on the Talent Development High School (TDHS) program, a large -scale educational reform effort designed to restructure high schools serving at-risk students. His most recent project in this program (with S. Plank, J. McPartland, and W. Jordan) focuses on the nature, antecedents, and consequences of “civility/incivility” in the high school setting.

Recent Publications

Edward L. McDill and Gary Natriello. (1998). The effectiveness of Title I compensatory education program: 1965-1997. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 3, 317-335.

Edward L. McDill and Gary Natriello. (1999). The sociology of day care. Pp. 21-30 in J.V. Copley (ed),  Mathematics In the Early Years. Reston, VA: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc.

Gary Natriello and Edward L. McDill. (1999). Title I: From funding mechanism to educational program. Ppp. 31-45 in G. Orfield and E.H. Debray (eds.), Hard Work For Good Schools: Facts Not Fads in Title I Reform. Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University. (To be reprinted in an edited volume by the Century Foundation).

Edward L. McDill and Gary Natriello. (2000). History and promise of assessment and accountability in Title I.. Pp. 59-77 in G. Borman,

R.E. Slavin, and S. Stringfield, (eds.), Title I: Evidence and Discussion of Its Past, Present, and Future Contributions. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Stephen B. Plank, Edward L. McDill, James M. McPartland, and Will J. Jordan. (2001). Situation and repertoire: Civility, incivility, cursing, and politeness in an urban high school. Teachers College Record, 103 (3), 504-524.


Work in Progress
Member of the Committee for Increasing High School Students’ Engagement and Motivation to Learn appointed by the National Academy of Sciences to examine how curriculum, instruction, and the organization of schools or alternative educational environments can promote involvement of urban youth in the academic program and in the broader school community. A monograph based on the work of the committee will be published by the National Academy Press.