Natasha Warikoo is Stern Professor in the Social Sciences, Department of Sociology, at Tufts University. A former Guggenheim Fellow and high school teacher, Warikoo studies the cultural processes that perpetuate inequality in education, including beliefs about meritocracy, admissions, affirmative action, and racial equity. She has studied high schools and selective colleges, in both the United States and Britain.
Warikoo released two books in 2022. Race at the Top: Asian Americans and Whites in Pursuit of the American Dream in Suburban Schools (University of Chicago Press, May 2022) illuminates tensions related to achievement and emotional well-being in a suburban, high-income town with a large and growing Asian American population.
Race at the Top won honorable mention for the Pierre Bourdieu Award for best book from the American Sociological Association’s Section on Sociology of Education. Is Affirmative Action Fair? The Myth of Equity in College Admissions (Polity Press, 2022) is a short primer on affirmative action, including a chapter on Asian Americans.
In the book, Warikoo argues that colleges should better align admissions with mission, and when they do, affirmative action becomes a clear policy to maintain.
Warikoo’s previous book, The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities (University of Chicago Press, 2016), shows how undergraduates attending Ivy League universities and Oxford University conceptualize race and meritocracy. The book emphasizes the contradictions, moral conundrums, and tensions on campus related to affirmative action and diversity, and how these vary across racial and national lines. The Diversity Bargain won book awards from the American Sociological Association, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the American Educational Research Association.
Warikoo’s first book, Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City (University of California Press, 2011), analyzes youth culture among children of immigrants attending diverse, low-performing high schools in New York City and London. Balancing Acts won the Thomas and Znaniecki Best Book Award from the International Migration section of the American Sociological Association.
In addition to her academic work, Warikoo works with Scholars Strategy Network, which aims to connect scholars, policymakers, civic leaders, and journalists, serving as co-chair of the Boston chapter until 2023, and currently on the Chapter Advisory Council. She writes and speaks frequently for public audiences (The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, and more).
See here for her public engagement, for which she has won awards from the Eastern Sociological Society and the American Sociological Association. She chaired the Sociology of Education Section of the American Sociological Association in 2022-2023, and currently serves on the ASA Council. Warikoo was previously Associate Professor of Education at Harvard University. Prior to her academic career she was a teacher in New York City’s public schools, and also spent time working at the US Department of Education. Warikoo completed her PhD in sociology from Harvard University, and BSc and BA in mathematics and philosophy at Brown University. She lives in Cambridge with her husband Ramesh Kumar and their three children. Contact Natasha at: natasha.warikoo@tufts.edu.
Natasha Warikoo 