Natasha Warikoo
Biographic Data
| ID | 149340 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Natasha Warikoo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Natasha |
| FAMILY NAME | Warikoo |
| SIGNATURE | WARIKOO N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tufts University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9663-3448 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 259 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The benefits of longitudinal ethnography: Book Review of The Asian Gang Revisited: Changing Muslim Masculinities , by Claire Alexander, Reviewed by Natasha Warikoo
The Demise of Affirmative Action in College Admissions
Affirmative action began as a bipartisan policy to address racial inequality in the workplace and in higher education. Given its small footprint in college admissions (most colleges never practiced it), its bipartisan support in the early years, evidence documenting its positive impact, and renewed attention to racial inequality since 2020, why did it come to an end in 2023? This review traces the dominant cultural framings of affirmative action …
Considering Power and Institutional Change in the Study of Migration’s Impact on Non‐Migrants: Commentary on Schut & Crul (2024) and Keskiner et al. (2024)
Schut and Crul (2024) and Keskiner et al. (2024) bring much‐needed attention to migration’s impact on host societies. They investigate Dutch non‐migrant parents’ responses to migration‐related issues that arise in their children’s schooling, highlighting the diversity of those responses. Future analyses should move beyond individual analyses to understand broader social changes, how group‐level status shapes institutional responses to migration, …
Sitting Around Grandma’s Table: Scholars Discuss the State of Education
Resisting Amnesia: Renewing and Expanding the Study of Suburban Inequality
Suburban inequality is the focus of this double issue of RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences . This introduction addresses the limited related scholarship, describes how inequality unfolds differently in suburban communities than in urban and rural communities, and draws attention to urgent issues related to stratification between and within suburban communities. We argue that inattention to the study of suburban space…
Neutralité raciale et diversité: La Fabrique Des Cadres Raciaux Au Sein De Deux Universités d'Élite Étatsuniennes
Cet article propose d'analyser les cadres raciaux, ou les prismes par lesquels les individus interprètent le rôle de la race dans la société, mobilisés par les étudiantes et étudiants blancs de deux universités d'élite étatsuniennes. Pour la plupart d'entre eux, l'entrée dans une université d'élite coïncide avec le renforcement du cadre de la diversité qui met l'accent sur les retombées positives de la diversité culturelle. Beaucoup adoptent, cep…
Digital Divisions: How Schools Create Inequality in the Tech Era
Race at the Top: Asian Americans and Whites in Pursuit of the American Dream in Suburban Schools
Asian American Perspectives on Immigration Policy
Despite the rapid growth in both documented and undocumented Asian Americans, their attitudes toward immigration policy are not well understood. Drawing on data from the 2016 National Asian American Survey, this article examines both interracial and intra-Asian differences in views toward immigration. Relative to other racial groups, Asians are as likely to support legal migration, but less likely to support undocumented migration. We document si…
The Influence of Parent Expectations and Parent‐Child Relationships on Mental Health in Asian American and White American Families
Previous studies have suggested that Asian parents’ high academic expectations can lead to negative mental health outcomes among Asian American youth. We explore this hypothesis by analyzing data collected in an affluent, suburban high school with a large Asian American population. We examine the relationships between parent expectations, students’ relationships with their parents, and mental health outcomes among Asian American (predominantly In…
Teachers Are People Too: Examining the Racial Bias of Teachers Compared to Other American Adults
Schools are heralded by some as unique sites for promoting racial equity. Central to this characterization is the presumption that teachers embrace racial equity and teaching about this topic. In contrast, others have documented the ongoing role of teachers in perpetuating racial inequality in schools. In this article, we employ data from two national data sets to investigate teachers’ explicit and implicit racial bias, comparing them to adults w…
Navigating Conflict: How Youth Handle Trouble in a High-Poverty School
Weak multiculturalism and fears of cultural encroachment: Meanings of multiculturalism among young elites in Britain
While politicians and scholars have debated the meaning, value, and purposes of multiculturalism for decades, less attention has been paid to the views of a broader group of Britons. In this paper I analyze the meaning of multiculturalism for elite university students in Britain. Many British leaders spend their early adulthood in elite universities. Do they hold the same conceptions of multiculturalism that scholars, the media, and politicians e…
A solution to multiple problems: The Origins of Affirmative Action in Higher Education Around the World
How and when does affirmative action emerge in different national contexts? This paper is the first to analyze the emergence of affirmative action in higher education across national contexts. We find that three distinct clusters of affirmative action policies developed historically: (1) early nation-building projects, (2) mechanisms to attenuate social inequality in response to identity-based social movements, and (3) twenty-first century ‘indir…
White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America
Addressing Emotional Health while Protecting Status: Asian American and White Parents in Suburban America
The emotional dimensions of parenting among upper-middle-class parents have not been fully theorized or measured. In this article I employ 60 in-depth interviews with professional white, Chinese, and Indian parents living in the same well-off suburban town to show how parents think about and attend to their teenage children’s emotional well-being. I find that attending to children’s emotional well-being sometimes competes with attending to achiev…
The diversity bargain: And other dilemmas of race, admissions, and meritocracy at elite universities
The diversity bargain: and other dilemmas of race, admissions, and meritocracy at elite universities." International Studies in Sociology of Education, 27(4), pp. 457–458
What Meritocracy Means to its Winners: Admissions, Race, and Inequality at Elite Universities in The United States and Britain
How do winners of processes of meritocracy make sense of those processes, especially in the face of forceful public critiques of their unequal outcomes? In this paper I analyze the meaning-making with respect to merit in university admissions of White, native-born undergraduates attending elite American and British universities. I find that United States students support the "calibration" of evaluations of merit, and emphasize evaluations of appl…
Our Compelling Interests: The Value of Diversity for Democracy and a Prosperous Society
Economic Americanness and defensive inclusion: Social Location and Young Citizens' Conceptions of National Identity
What does it mean to be “American”? Drawing on in-depth interviews with 76 undergraduates attending elite universities and 72 teenaged citizen children of immigrants living in mostly low-income households, we identify understudied economic narratives of Americanness: as future-oriented economic opportunities for elite undergraduates or stratified notions of current economic condition among immigrant-origin teens. We also find, depending on social…
The next generation of immigration scholarship
Tomas Jimenez's The Other Side of Assimilation is an insightful study of immigration from the perspective of non-immigrants. While most studies of immigration consider how immigration changes immig
A research agenda on race and meritocracy
Reading six reviews of my book is a humbling experience. I am honoured by my colleagues' careful attention to my work, and for their feedback. They raise many important issues related to my investi
The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities
Examining Racial Bias in Education: A New Approach
In this article we argue that social-psychological research on implicit racial associations—relatively unconscious associations based on race—is a fruitful area to explore for a greater understanding of how racial bias affects children in schools. We highlight the key insights of research on implicit racial associations and their implications for education. Further, we identify areas for research on implicit racial associations in education, call…
Colour-blindness and diversity: Race frames and their consequences for white undergraduates at elite US universities
In this paper we bring together the literatures on frame analysis, the meaning of race and campus racial climate to analyse the race frames - lenses through which individuals understand the role of race in society - held by white students attending elite US universities. For most, the elite university experience coincides with a strengthening or emergence of the diversity frame, which emphasizes the positive benefits of cultural diversity. Still,…
Teachers Are People Too: Examining the Racial Bias of Teachers Compared to Other American Adults
Schools are heralded by some as unique sites for promoting racial equity. Central to this characterization is the presumption that teachers embrace racial equity and teaching about this topic. In contrast, others have documented the ongoing role of teachers in perpetuating racial inequality in schools. In this article, we employ data from two national data sets to investigate teachers’ explicit and implicit racial bias, comparing them to adults w…
Colour-blindness and diversity: Race frames and their consequences for white undergraduates at elite US universities
In this paper we bring together the literatures on frame analysis, the meaning of race and campus racial climate to analyse the race frames - lenses through which individuals understand the role of race in society - held by white students attending elite US universities. For most, the elite university experience coincides with a strengthening or emergence of the diversity frame, which emphasizes the positive benefits of cultural diversity. Still,…
Gender and ethnic identity among second-generation Indo-Caribbeans
This article discusses second-generation Indo-Caribbean (West Indian of Indian descent) teenagers' ethnic identities, through a look at their taste preferences and self assertions of identity. Both Indo-Caribbean young men and women draw from multiple influences on their identities. In terms of tastes in clothing and movies, however, girls are more interested in things Indian, and in "Indian culture". Boys, on the other hand, choose to distance t…
Examining Racial Bias in Education: A New Approach
In this article we argue that social-psychological research on implicit racial associations—relatively unconscious associations based on race—is a fruitful area to explore for a greater understanding of how racial bias affects children in schools. We highlight the key insights of research on implicit racial associations and their implications for education. Further, we identify areas for research on implicit racial associations in education, call…
Legitimating status: Perceptions of meritocracy and inequality among undergraduates at an elite British university
Given the frequent critiques of elite universities for admitting low numbers of state school graduates and, more recently, British Afro‐Caribbean students, how do students attending those universities make meaning of the admissions process? Through an analysis of 46 one‐on‐one in‐depth interviews with undergraduates attending Oxford University, we show that students believe in the fairness of the admissions process, while lamenting the lack of op…
What Meritocracy Means to its Winners: Admissions, Race, and Inequality at Elite Universities in The United States and Britain
How do winners of processes of meritocracy make sense of those processes, especially in the face of forceful public critiques of their unequal outcomes? In this paper I analyze the meaning-making with respect to merit in university admissions of White, native-born undergraduates attending elite American and British universities. I find that United States students support the "calibration" of evaluations of merit, and emphasize evaluations of appl…
Economic Americanness and defensive inclusion: Social Location and Young Citizens' Conceptions of National Identity
What does it mean to be “American”? Drawing on in-depth interviews with 76 undergraduates attending elite universities and 72 teenaged citizen children of immigrants living in mostly low-income households, we identify understudied economic narratives of Americanness: as future-oriented economic opportunities for elite undergraduates or stratified notions of current economic condition among immigrant-origin teens. We also find, depending on social…
Addressing Emotional Health while Protecting Status: Asian American and White Parents in Suburban America
The emotional dimensions of parenting among upper-middle-class parents have not been fully theorized or measured. In this article I employ 60 in-depth interviews with professional white, Chinese, and Indian parents living in the same well-off suburban town to show how parents think about and attend to their teenage children’s emotional well-being. I find that attending to children’s emotional well-being sometimes competes with attending to achiev…
Racial authenticity among second generation youth in multiethnic New York and London
Resisting Amnesia: Renewing and Expanding the Study of Suburban Inequality
Suburban inequality is the focus of this double issue of RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences . This introduction addresses the limited related scholarship, describes how inequality unfolds differently in suburban communities than in urban and rural communities, and draws attention to urgent issues related to stratification between and within suburban communities. We argue that inattention to the study of suburban space…
Race and the teacher–student relationship: Interpersonal connections between West Indian students and their teachers in a New York City high school1
Through a review of interviews with West Indian, African American, and white teachers at a New York City high school with a large West Indian population (ages 14 to 18), in this paper I discuss the complicated nature of teacher–student matching, and its impact on student achievement. I find that West Indian teachers have strong points of connection with their West Indian students, and clearly serve as their advocates when cultural differences suc…
The Influence of Parent Expectations and Parent‐Child Relationships on Mental Health in Asian American and White American Families
Previous studies have suggested that Asian parents’ high academic expectations can lead to negative mental health outcomes among Asian American youth. We explore this hypothesis by analyzing data collected in an affluent, suburban high school with a large Asian American population. We examine the relationships between parent expectations, students’ relationships with their parents, and mental health outcomes among Asian American (predominantly In…
Weak multiculturalism and fears of cultural encroachment: Meanings of multiculturalism among young elites in Britain
While politicians and scholars have debated the meaning, value, and purposes of multiculturalism for decades, less attention has been paid to the views of a broader group of Britons. In this paper I analyze the meaning of multiculturalism for elite university students in Britain. Many British leaders spend their early adulthood in elite universities. Do they hold the same conceptions of multiculturalism that scholars, the media, and politicians e…
Beyond the Numbers: Institutional Influences on Experiences With Diversity on Elite College Campuses
In this article we bring together the burgeoning qualitative literature on the socializing influence of residential colleges, the survey‐based literature on campus racial climate, and the literature on diversity work in organizations to analyze how two elite universities’ approaches to diversity shape students’ experiences with and feelings about diversity. We employ 77 in‐depth interviews with undergraduates at two elite universities. While the …
Asian American Perspectives on Immigration Policy
Despite the rapid growth in both documented and undocumented Asian Americans, their attitudes toward immigration policy are not well understood. Drawing on data from the 2016 National Asian American Survey, this article examines both interracial and intra-Asian differences in views toward immigration. Relative to other racial groups, Asians are as likely to support legal migration, but less likely to support undocumented migration. We document si…
A solution to multiple problems: The Origins of Affirmative Action in Higher Education Around the World
How and when does affirmative action emerge in different national contexts? This paper is the first to analyze the emergence of affirmative action in higher education across national contexts. We find that three distinct clusters of affirmative action policies developed historically: (1) early nation-building projects, (2) mechanisms to attenuate social inequality in response to identity-based social movements, and (3) twenty-first century ‘indir…
The diversity bargain: And other dilemmas of race, admissions, and meritocracy at elite universities
The diversity bargain: and other dilemmas of race, admissions, and meritocracy at elite universities." International Studies in Sociology of Education, 27(4), pp. 457–458
Our Compelling Interests: The Value of Diversity for Democracy and a Prosperous Society
Ethnicity and Education in England and Europe: Gangstas, Geeks and Gorjas
Sitting Around Grandma’s Table: Scholars Discuss the State of Education
A research agenda on race and meritocracy
Reading six reviews of my book is a humbling experience. I am honoured by my colleagues' careful attention to my work, and for their feedback. They raise many important issues related to my investi
Race and the teacher–student relationship: Interpersonal connections between West Indian students and their teachers in a New York City high school1
Through a review of interviews with West Indian, African American, and white teachers at a New York City high school with a large West Indian population (ages 14 to 18), in this paper I discuss the complicated nature of teacher–student matching, and its impact on student achievement. I find that West Indian teachers have strong points of connection with their West Indian students, and clearly serve as their advocates when cultural differences suc…
Gender and ethnic identity among second-generation Indo-Caribbeans
This article discusses second-generation Indo-Caribbean (West Indian of Indian descent) teenagers' ethnic identities, through a look at their taste preferences and self assertions of identity. Both Indo-Caribbean young men and women draw from multiple influences on their identities. In terms of tastes in clothing and movies, however, girls are more interested in things Indian, and in "Indian culture". Boys, on the other hand, choose to distance t…
Racial authenticity among second generation youth in multiethnic New York and London
Cultural Explanations for Racial and Ethnic Stratification in Academic Achievement: A Call for a New and Improved Theory
In this article we assess the literature on cultural explanations for ethno-racial differences in K–12 schooling and academic performance. Some cultural arguments problematically define certain ethno-racial identities and cultures as subtractive from the goal of academic mobility while defining the ethnic cultures and identities of others as additive and oriented toward this goal. We review two prevailing schools of thought that compare immigrant…
Symbolic Boundaries and School Structure in New York and London Schools
This article shows that an ethnically diverse student population leads to blurred ethnic and racial boundaries in high schools. Still, students in New York distinguish themselves much more along ethnic and racial lines than do London students. The evidence presented suggests that, in addition to national‐level differences, traditional British school structure, which provides continuity of peers through the form class as well as time for socializi…
Beyond the Numbers: Institutional Influences on Experiences With Diversity on Elite College Campuses
In this article we bring together the burgeoning qualitative literature on the socializing influence of residential colleges, the survey‐based literature on campus racial climate, and the literature on diversity work in organizations to analyze how two elite universities’ approaches to diversity shape students’ experiences with and feelings about diversity. We employ 77 in‐depth interviews with undergraduates at two elite universities. While the …
Legitimating status: Perceptions of meritocracy and inequality among undergraduates at an elite British university
Given the frequent critiques of elite universities for admitting low numbers of state school graduates and, more recently, British Afro‐Caribbean students, how do students attending those universities make meaning of the admissions process? Through an analysis of 46 one‐on‐one in‐depth interviews with undergraduates attending Oxford University, we show that students believe in the fairness of the admissions process, while lamenting the lack of op…
Ethnicity and Education in England and Europe: Gangstas, Geeks and Gorjas
Colour-blindness and diversity: Race frames and their consequences for white undergraduates at elite US universities
In this paper we bring together the literatures on frame analysis, the meaning of race and campus racial climate to analyse the race frames - lenses through which individuals understand the role of race in society - held by white students attending elite US universities. For most, the elite university experience coincides with a strengthening or emergence of the diversity frame, which emphasizes the positive benefits of cultural diversity. Still,…
The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities
Examining Racial Bias in Education: A New Approach
In this article we argue that social-psychological research on implicit racial associations—relatively unconscious associations based on race—is a fruitful area to explore for a greater understanding of how racial bias affects children in schools. We highlight the key insights of research on implicit racial associations and their implications for education. Further, we identify areas for research on implicit racial associations in education, call…
A research agenda on race and meritocracy
Reading six reviews of my book is a humbling experience. I am honoured by my colleagues' careful attention to my work, and for their feedback. They raise many important issues related to my investi
The diversity bargain: And other dilemmas of race, admissions, and meritocracy at elite universities
The diversity bargain: and other dilemmas of race, admissions, and meritocracy at elite universities." International Studies in Sociology of Education, 27(4), pp. 457–458
What Meritocracy Means to its Winners: Admissions, Race, and Inequality at Elite Universities in The United States and Britain
How do winners of processes of meritocracy make sense of those processes, especially in the face of forceful public critiques of their unequal outcomes? In this paper I analyze the meaning-making with respect to merit in university admissions of White, native-born undergraduates attending elite American and British universities. I find that United States students support the "calibration" of evaluations of merit, and emphasize evaluations of appl…
Our Compelling Interests: The Value of Diversity for Democracy and a Prosperous Society
Economic Americanness and defensive inclusion: Social Location and Young Citizens' Conceptions of National Identity
What does it mean to be “American”? Drawing on in-depth interviews with 76 undergraduates attending elite universities and 72 teenaged citizen children of immigrants living in mostly low-income households, we identify understudied economic narratives of Americanness: as future-oriented economic opportunities for elite undergraduates or stratified notions of current economic condition among immigrant-origin teens. We also find, depending on social…
The next generation of immigration scholarship
Tomas Jimenez's The Other Side of Assimilation is an insightful study of immigration from the perspective of non-immigrants. While most studies of immigration consider how immigration changes immig
The Influence of Parent Expectations and Parent‐Child Relationships on Mental Health in Asian American and White American Families
Previous studies have suggested that Asian parents’ high academic expectations can lead to negative mental health outcomes among Asian American youth. We explore this hypothesis by analyzing data collected in an affluent, suburban high school with a large Asian American population. We examine the relationships between parent expectations, students’ relationships with their parents, and mental health outcomes among Asian American (predominantly In…
Teachers Are People Too: Examining the Racial Bias of Teachers Compared to Other American Adults
Schools are heralded by some as unique sites for promoting racial equity. Central to this characterization is the presumption that teachers embrace racial equity and teaching about this topic. In contrast, others have documented the ongoing role of teachers in perpetuating racial inequality in schools. In this article, we employ data from two national data sets to investigate teachers’ explicit and implicit racial bias, comparing them to adults w…
Navigating Conflict: How Youth Handle Trouble in a High-Poverty School
Weak multiculturalism and fears of cultural encroachment: Meanings of multiculturalism among young elites in Britain
While politicians and scholars have debated the meaning, value, and purposes of multiculturalism for decades, less attention has been paid to the views of a broader group of Britons. In this paper I analyze the meaning of multiculturalism for elite university students in Britain. Many British leaders spend their early adulthood in elite universities. Do they hold the same conceptions of multiculturalism that scholars, the media, and politicians e…
A solution to multiple problems: The Origins of Affirmative Action in Higher Education Around the World
How and when does affirmative action emerge in different national contexts? This paper is the first to analyze the emergence of affirmative action in higher education across national contexts. We find that three distinct clusters of affirmative action policies developed historically: (1) early nation-building projects, (2) mechanisms to attenuate social inequality in response to identity-based social movements, and (3) twenty-first century ‘indir…
White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America
Addressing Emotional Health while Protecting Status: Asian American and White Parents in Suburban America
The emotional dimensions of parenting among upper-middle-class parents have not been fully theorized or measured. In this article I employ 60 in-depth interviews with professional white, Chinese, and Indian parents living in the same well-off suburban town to show how parents think about and attend to their teenage children’s emotional well-being. I find that attending to children’s emotional well-being sometimes competes with attending to achiev…
Asian American Perspectives on Immigration Policy
Despite the rapid growth in both documented and undocumented Asian Americans, their attitudes toward immigration policy are not well understood. Drawing on data from the 2016 National Asian American Survey, this article examines both interracial and intra-Asian differences in views toward immigration. Relative to other racial groups, Asians are as likely to support legal migration, but less likely to support undocumented migration. We document si…
Sociology (29 works) · Political science (24 works) · Gender Studies (20 works) · Gender Studies (17 works) · Law (17 works) · Law (16 works) · Ethnic group (12 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Critical Race Theory in Education (9 works) · Anthropology (8 works)