• Horvat, Erin McNamara & Baugh, David E. (2015) Not All Parents Make the Grade in Today’s Schools: Education Reforms Have Added Choice, Raised Standards and Made Schools Safer Places but Parents Haven’t Acquired the Necessary Skills to Navigate This New Education Landscape.Phi Delta Kappan 96(7) pp. 8-13.
• Horvat, Erin McNamara and David E. Baugh (2014) Are You in Favor of Charter Schools? Phi Delta Kappan 96(4) p. 80.
• Cucchiara, Maia B. and Erin McNamara Horvat. Choosing Selves: The Salience of Parental Identity in the School Choice Process. Journal of Education Policy Available online November 2013.
• Jennifer G. Cromley, Tony Perez, Theodore W. Wills, Jacqueline C. Tanaka, Erin McNamara Horvat, Emily Tancredi-Brice Agbenyega. Changes in Race and Sex Stereotype Threat among Diverse STEM Students: Relation to Grades and Retention in the Majors. Contemporary Educational Psychology, Available online 3 May 2013
• Horvat, Erin McNamara and James Earl Davis. (2011) Schools as Sites for Transformation: Exploring the Contribution of the Habitus.  Youth and Society 43(1) pp. 142-170.
• Horvat, Erin McNamara, Juliet DiLeo Curci & Michelle Chaplin Partlow. (2010) Parents Principals and Power: A Historical Case Study of “Managing” Parental Involvement  Journal of School Leadership 20(6) pp. 702-727.
• Cucchiara, Maia and Erin McNamara Horvat. (2009)  Perils and Promises: Middle-Class Parental Involvement in Urban Schools.  American Educational Research Journal v. 46 pp. 974-1004. 
• Florea, Silvia and Erin McNamara Horvat. (2009) The Promise and Challenge of Increasing Access to Higher Education: Notes from a Romanian/United States Comparative Analysis.  Higher Education in Europe v.34 October-December pp. 481-495.

• Urban Education
• Sociology of Education
• Access and Equity
• High School Dropout
• Pipeline Issues/College Access
• Parental Involvement/Family Involvement
• Community Engagement in Research
• Qualitative Inquiry

Click here to view Professor Horvat’s full Vita.

• Drexel University (2015-Present)
  Professor
• Drexel University (2016-2024
  Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement and Undergraduate Affairs
• School of Education, Drexel University
  Interim Dean, School of Education (2022-2023)
• School of Education, Drexel University (2015-2016)
  Professor and Associate Dean
• School of Education, Temple University (1996-2014)
  Assistant and Associate Professor, Urban Education
  Secondary Faculty Appointment
• School of Education, Temple University (2006-2008)
  Chair, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
• School of Education, Temple University (1996-1998)
  Assistant Dean for Research and Development

Dr. Erin McNamara Horvat is a professor in the School of Education. An ethnographer and sociologist of education, Dr. Horvat’s research agenda has explored how race and class shape access throughout the educational pipeline, focusing especially on the role of social and cultural capital in shaping families’ interactions with schools, students’ college experiences, college access, and high school dropout and reentry. She has been deeply committed to work with out-of-school youth through her support of YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter School as a longtime board member and 4-year board chair. Other community related Board service includes The Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral and the Church of the Advocate. She has served on the editorial boards for the American Journal of Educational Research, Sociology of Education and Anthropology and Education Quarterly. Since joining Drexel in 2015 her research has focused on the groundbreaking and visionary civic engagement efforts being undertaken by Drexel University in the West Philadelphia neighborhood in which it resides. She has Co-Chaired the Education Committee for the Federally designated Promise Zone and served as the education lead on the 30-million- dollar Promise Neighborhood grant submission. Her publications include Beyond Acting White: Reframing the Debate on Black Student Achievement (coedited with Carla O’Connor), and Doing Qualitative Research, published by Teachers College Press as well as peer reviewed articles in Sociology of Education, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Youth and Society and American Educational Research Journal. Her work has been funded by the Spencer Foundation and The Ford Foundation.

In addition to her career as a scholar and educator, Professor Horvat has served in several leadership positions both at Drexel University (Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement 2016-2024) and at Temple University where she served as Assistant Dean in the College of Education (1996-1998), Program Coordinator of the Urban Education Program (2001-2004 and 2014-2015) and Chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (2006-2008).

A native Californian, proud Philadelphian and mother to Katherine and Margaret, Dr. Horvat is an avid oarswoman continuing to row competitively as a Masters rower in local and regional regattas and enjoys all aspects of food, especially cooking and eating. She and her husband, Bill Manning, reside in Philadelphia.