Patricia McMullin profile picture
Patricia
McMullin
Academy Research Fellow, INVEST Research Flagship Centre
Head of curriculum development INVEST

Contact

+358 29 450 3077
+358 46 922 1882

Areas of expertise

social inequality
education
early childhood inequality
geographical mobility

Biography

I am a  Lecturer and Senior researcher at the Inequalities, Interventions and New Welfare State (INVEST) Flagship at the University of Turku. Prior to this, I held the University lectureship in quantitative methodology at the Department of Social Research and a postdoctoral position on the European Research Council funded project INDIRECT (Intergenerational Cumulative Disadvantage and Resource Compensation) led by Prof. Jani Erola at the University of Turku. I received my doctorate from the European University Institute in 2016 as part of the ERC project eduLIFE (Education as a Lifelong Process) led by Prof. Hans-Peter Blossfeld. I have also previously worked as a researcher at the University of Bamberg, Germany and as a research assistant at the Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin, Ireland. 

Teaching

I am currently the lecturer for the Academy of Finland Flagship project INVEST. My responsibilities include the design and implementation of the curriculum of the new Masters and Doctoral Programme. This includes the development of several new courses in the social sciences such as the Finnish Welfare State in Comparison, Prevention and Intervention research, the research themes of INVEST, multivariate research methods  and the organisation and development of advanced research methods for social scientists.  Prior to this I was the quantitative research methods lecturer for the Social Research Department at the University of Turku from September 2018-August 2019. This position involved teaching at both at the postgraduate and undergraduate level. The courses I taught included multivariate research methods, graphs and interactions, multilevel modeling, additionally I was the responsible for coordinating courses on Finnish institutions and society and theoretical approaches in the social sciences.

Research

My research focuses on cumulative inequality over the life course, early childhood  inequality, and geographical mobility in the inter-generational transmission of (dis)advantage. I am particularly interested in subject choice, the role of information in educational attainment, the influence of social origin and the home learning environment on cognitive development and the impact of family migration on children's educational outcomes. 

Publications

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