Natasha Kumar Warikoo

Short Biography & Significant Contribution

After teaching in the New York public school system for four years Natasha Warikoo decided to get a better understanding of the root of racial and ethnic inequalities that exist within educational systems on a global level, and thus earned her Ph.D in Sociology from Harvard University. Her main interests include how cultural influences sway personal decisions in achieving high status, and how these factors are all intertwined with inequality, education, race, and immigration.

She is currently working on a cross-national study of elite American and British university students and their understandings of inequality and multiculturalism in society. She aims to compare how different contexts and institutions will result in varied understandings of diversity and achievement.

Dr. Warikoo has also taught at the University of London for 4 years, and is currently an assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has been published in journals such as the American Journal of Education, Race, Ethnicity and Education, Racial and Ethnic Studies, and Review of Educational Research, as well as books and newspapers. Her book, Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City (University of California Press 2011), is an analysis on children of immigrants in high schools in New York and London, and how their culture influences their schooling.

She has also worked as a consultant at the US Department of Education, and won numerous grants and awards from the National Science Foundation, the American Sociological Association, Nuffield Foundation, and the British Academy.

Educational Background

Ph.D. and M.A Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, MA 2000-2005
Malcolm Weiner Fellow in Inequality and Social Policy, Kennedy School of Government 2001-2005
M.Ed. Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA 1996-1997
B.S. Brown University, Providence, RI 1991-1995

Professional Background

Assistant Professor, Harvard University Graduate School of Education (HGSE) Jan. 2009-present 
Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in US Studies, Institute for the Study of the Americas School of Advanced Study, University of London 2005-2008

Affiliations (associations, organizations, institutions)

American Educational Research Association
American Sociological Association
Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism
Council for European Studies

Selected Publications

Warikoo, N. (2012). "Culture, Diversity and Education," in Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education, ed. J. Banks. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Warikoo, N. (2010). "Symbolic Boundaries and School Structure in Multiethnic Schools." American Journal of Education 116(3): 423-451.

Warikoo, N. and P. Carter. (2009). "Cultural Explanations for Racial and Ethnic Stratification in Academic Achievement: A Call for a New and Improved Theory". Review of Educational Research 79(1): 366-394.

Warikoo, N. (2007). "Racial Authenticity among Second Generation Youth in Multiethnic New York and London." Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media, and the Arts 35(6): 388-408.

Warikoo, N. (2005). "Gender and Ethnic Identity among Second Generation Indo-Caribbeans." Ethnic and Racial Studies 28(5): 803-831.

Warikoo, N. (2004). "Race and the Teacher-Student Relationship: Interpersonal Connections between West Indian Students and their Teachers in a New York City High School." Race, Ethnicity and Education 7(2): 135-147.

Created: 11/19/2012

Updated: 12/4/2012

Contributed By: Busra Ozturk, Lehigh University