Contemporary Authors

• Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2011
• The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2016

1. The diversity bargain : and other dilemmas of race, admissions, and meritocracy at elite universities LCCN 2016007483 Type of material Book Personal name Warikoo, Natasha Kumar, 1973- author. Main title The diversity bargain : and other dilemmas of race, admissions, and meritocracy at elite universities / Natasha K. Warikoo. Published/Produced Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, [2016] Description x, 293 pages ; 24 cm ISBN 9780226400143 (cloth : alk. paper) CALL NUMBER LA229 .W37 2016 CABIN BRANCH Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE

• Harvard School of Education - https://www.gse.harvard.edu/faculty/natasha-warikoo

  Natasha Kumar Warikoo
  Associate Professor of Education
  Natasha Kumar Warikoo
  DEGREE: Ph.D., Harvard University, (2005)
  EMAIL: natasha_warikoo@gse.harvard.edu
  PHONE: 617.495.2488
  PERSONAL SITE: Link to Site
  VITAE/CV: Natasha Kumar Warikoo.pdf
  OFFICE: Gutman 416
  OFFICE HOURS: http://warikooofficehours.wikispaces.com/
  OFFICE HOURS CONTACT: Online Sign-up
  FACULTY ASSISTANT: Kevin Walsh

  Profile

  Natasha Warikoo is an expert on the relationships between education, racial and ethnic diversity, and cultural processes in schools and universities. Her most recent book, The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities illuminates 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. Her first book, Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City, analyzes youth culture among children of immigrants attending low-performing high schools in New York City and London. Balancing Actswon the Thomas and Znaneicki Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association's International Migration Section.

  Warikoo's research has been published in the American Journal of Education; British Education Research Journal; Poetics; Race, Ethnicity and Education; Ethnic and Racial Studies (also here); Review of Educational Research; Sociological Forum), Education Week, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post), and she has won grants and awards from American Sociological Association, the British Academy, National Science Foundation, Nuffield Foundation, and Russell Sage Foundation. Her recent articles can be accessed for free here.

  Warikoo teaches courses on racial inequality and the role of culture in K-12 and higher education. Warikoo was a teacher in New York City's public schools for four years, and also spent time working at the U.S. Department of Education and as a fellow with the Teachers Network Leadership Institute. Warikoo completed her Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University, and B.Sc. and B.A. in mathematics and philosophy at Brown University.

  Click here to see a full list of Natasha Warikoo's courses.

  Areas of Expertise
  Diversity
  Ethnic Issues
  Higher Education Administration
  Immigrant Issues
  International Education
  Minorities
  Racial Discrimination
  School Culture
  Awards
  Visiting Scholar, Russell Sage Foundation,(2014)

  Thomas and Znaniecki Best Book Award for Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City [ASA International Migration Section],(2012)

  William E. Milton Fund Grant, Harvard University “Elite Undergraduates on Multiculturalism and Immigration: A Cross-National Study”,(2010)

  British Academy Social Science Small Grant: "Discourses on Multiculturalism among University Students in Britain and the United States”,(2008)

  American Sociological Association Section on Children and Youth, Best Student Paper Award,(2006)

  Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University Dissertation Research Award,(2004)

  National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Award,(2004)

  National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Fellowship, Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy, Harvard University,(2003)

  Sponsored Projects

  Asian Americans in Suburban America: Academic Competition, Youth Culture, and Racial Change (2016-2018)
  Russell Sage Foundation
  How does the settlement of the nation’s most successful immigrant groups shape the nature of racial boundaries, beliefs about success and achievement, and youth cultures? This project studies the impact of an increased Asian American population alongside increased competition at high schools in wealthy suburban communities. The findings will contribute to our understanding of assimilation and racial change. The study employs 200 in-depth interviews with white, Chinese American, and Indian American students and parents in two wealthy suburban communities—one with a large, growing Asian American population—and ethnographic observations and staff interviews at the local high school in both.

  Publications
  Warikoo, N. "Diversity in US and British Higher Education in National Context" in Routledge International Handbook of Diversity Studies, ed. by S. Vertovec, New York, Routledge.,(2015)

  Warikoo, N. and de Novais, J. "Colorblindness and Diversity: Race Frames and Their Consequences for White Undergraduates at Elite US Universities." Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38(6).,(2015)

  Warikoo, N. and Fuhr, C. "Legitimating Status: Perceptions of Meritocracy and Inequality among Undergraduates at an Elite British University." British Education Research Journal, 40(4).,(2014)

  Warikoo, N. and Deckman, S. "Beyond the Numbers: Institutional Influences on Experiences with Diversity on Elite College Campuses." Sociological Forum, 29(4).,(2014)

  Warikoo, N. "Who gets Admitted to College?" Los Angeles Times (July 20, Op-Ed).,(2013)

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

  Warikoo, N. "Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City." University of California Press.,(2011)

  Warikoo, N. “Youth Culture and Peer Status among Children of Immigrants in New York and London: Assessing the Cultural Explanation for Downward Assimilation,” in Beyond Stereotype: Minority Children of Immigrants in Urban Schools, ed. R. Saran and R. Diaz. Rotterdam: Sense.,(2010)

  Warikoo, N. “Symbolic Boundaries and School Structure in Multiethnic Schools.” American Journal of Education.,(2010)

  Warikoo, N. and P. Carter. “Cultural Explanations for Racial and Ethnic Stratification in Academic Achievement: A Call for a New and Improved Theory”. Review of Educational Research.,(2009)

  Warikoo, N. “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.,(2007)

  Warikoo, N. “The Continuing Significance of Race and Ethnicity in The Melting Pot,” in America’s Americans: The Populations of the United States, ed. P. Davies and I.Morgan. London: ISA Press.,(2007)

  Warikoo, N. “Two Schools, Worlds Apart: Lessons from London on How Small Schools Help Foster Racial Integration.” Education Week 25(31): 38.,(2006)

  Warikoo, N. “In a Teenage Waistland, Fitting In.” The Washington Post (July 31, p.B1).,(2005)

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

  Warikoo, N. “Cosmopolitan Ethnicity: Second Generation Indo-Caribbean Identities,” in Becoming New Yorkers: Ethnographies of the New Second Generation, ed. P. Kasinitz, J. Mollenkopf, and M. Waters. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.,(2004)

  Warikoo, N. “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.,(2004)

  Warikoo, N. “Outcomes of Reduced Class Size in High School Math Classrooms,” in Taking Action with Teacher Research, ed. E. Meyers and F. Rust. New York: Heinemann.,(2003)

  Associations
  Eastern Sociological Society,(2011-present)

  American Educational Research Association

  American Sociological Association

  Council for European Studies

  News Stories
  Warikoo Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship
  Harvard EdCast: The Diversity Bargain
  The Problem With How Higher Education Treats Diversity
  The Diversity Bargain
  Exploring Affirmative Action
  Who Is Affirmative Action For?
  Safe Space vs Free Speech?
  The Education of Immigrant Children
  Putting Merit into Context
  Warikoo Named Associate Professor

  cv:

  ACADEMIC POSITIONS
  NATASHA WARIKOO
  www.natashawarikoo.com
  Assistant to Associate Professor, Harvard University Graduate School of Education
  Faculty Associate, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Member, Standing Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, Rights
  Visiting Scholar, Russell Sage Foundation
  Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in US Studies, Institute for the Study of the Americas
  School of Advanced Study, University of London (Tenure-track position) EDUCATION
  Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, MA Ph.D. and M. A. in Sociology.
  Jan. 2009-present 2013-present 2015-present
  2013- 2014
  April 2005- Dec. 2008
  2000-2005
   Visiting Fellow, Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of Economics, 2003-2005.
   Malcolm Weiner Fellow in Inequality and Social Policy, Kennedy School of Government Multidisciplinary training in policy research and analysis. 2001-2005.
  Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA Ed.M. with concentration in Learning and Teaching.
  Brown University, Providence, RI
  Sc.B. in Mathematics and A.B. in Philosophy. Member of Sigma Xi honor society.
  PUBLICATIONS BOOKS
  Warikoo, N. (forthcoming, October 2016). The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  1996-1997 1991-1995
   Featured in Author-Meets-Critics session, Eastern Sociological Society, 2017
   Reviewed in The Atlantic, Pop Matters, Public Books, The Society Pages, Sociology, Times Higher
  Education
  Warikoo, N. (2011). Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  Winner, Thomas and Znaniecki Best Book Award
  International Migration Section of American Sociological Association.
  Reviewed in American Anthropologist, American Journal of Sociology, Comparative Education Review, Ethnic and Racial Studies, The European Legacy, Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Youth Studies Australia

  NATASHA KUMAR WARIKOO
  JOURNAL ARTICLES
  Warikoo, N. and I. Bloemraad. (forthcoming). “Opportunities to Succeed” or “Money and more Rights”: Social Location and Young People’s Views on American Identity. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
  Warikoo, N., Stacey Sinclair, Jessica Fei*, and Drew Jacoby-Senghor. (2016). “Examining Racial Bias in Education: A New Approach.” Educational Researcher 45(9).
  Warikoo, N. and J. de Novais*. (2015). “Colorblindness and Diversity: Race Frames and Their Consequences for White Undergraduates at Elite US Universities.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 38(6).
  Warikoo, N. and S. Deckman*. (2014). “Beyond the Numbers: Institutional Influences on Experiences with Diversity on Elite College Campuses.” Sociological Forum 29(4).
  Warikoo, N. and C. Fuhr*. (2014). “Legitimating Status: Perceptions of Meritocracy and Inequality among Undergraduates at an Elite British University.” British Education Research Journal 40(4).
  Warikoo, N. (2010). “Symbolic Boundaries and School Structure in New York and London Schools.” American Journal of Education 116(3).
  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).
  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).
  . (2005). “Gender and Ethnic Identity among Second Generation Indo-Caribbeans.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28(5) (lead article).
  . (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).
  * indicates doctoral student co-author
  BOOK CHAPTERS
  Warikoo, N. (forthcoming, 2017). “Race, Ethnicity and Cultural Processes in Education: New Frames for New Times,” in Education in a New Society: Renewing the Sociology of Education. Ed. J. Mehta and S. Davies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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  NATASHA KUMAR WARIKOO
  (2010). “Youth Culture and Peer Status among Children of Immigrants in New York and London: Assessing the Cultural Explanation for Downward Assimilation,” in Beyond Stereotypes: Minority Children of Immigrants in Urban Schools, ed. R. Saran and R. Diaz. Rotterdam: Sense.
  Winner, Best Student Paper Award
  American Sociological Association Section on Children and Youth.
  Reprinted in Inequality, Power and School Success: Case Studies on Racial Disparity and Opportunity in Education, (2015) ed. G. Conchas and M. Gottfried. New York: Routledge.
  . (2007). “The Continuing Significance of Race and Ethnicity in The Melting Pot,” in America’s Americans: The Populations of the United States, ed. P. Davies and I.Morgan. London: ISA Press.
  . (2004). “Cosmopolitan Ethnicity: Second Generation Indo-Caribbean Identities,” in Becoming New Yorkers: Ethnographies of the New Second Generation, ed. P. Kasinitz, J. Mollenkopf, and M. Waters. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
  . (2003). “Outcomes of Reduced Class Size in High School Math Classrooms,” in Taking Action with Teacher Research, ed. E. Meyers and F. Rust. New York: Heinemann.
  OPINION
  Warikoo, N. (2017). "College Admissions: The Myth of Meritocracy." Christian Science Monitor (March 29).
  .
  . .
  
  (2017). "Why Betsy DeVos’ vision of education does little to ensure equity (2016). “Who is Affirmative Action For?” Boston Globe (June 23, Op-Ed).
  (2013). “Who gets Admitted to College?” Los Angeles Times (July 20, Op-Ed). Listed in Five Best Thursday Columns in The Atlantic Wire
  .
  Racial Integration.” Education Week 25(31).
  (2006). “Two Schools, Worlds Apart: Lessons from London on How Small Schools Help Foster
  ." Hechinger Report
  (February 6, Op-Ed).
  . (2005). “In a Teenage Waistland, Fitting In.” The Washington Post (July 31, p.B1). OTHER PUBLICATIONS
  Warikoo, N. (2015). “Diversity in US and British Higher Education in National Context,” in Routledge International Handbook of Diversity Studies, ed. S. Vertovec. New York: Routledge.
  . (2012). “Culture, Diversity and Education,” in Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education, ed. J. Banks. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
  . (2010). Review of Blurring the Color Line: The new chance for a more integrated America, by R. Alba (Harvard 2009). Teachers College Record.
  . (2014). Review of Ethnicity and Education in England and Europe: Gangstas, Geeks and Gorjas, by I. Law and S. Swann (Ashgate 2011). Contemporary Sociology 43(1).
  3
  NATASHA KUMAR WARIKOO
  . (2009). Review of On Beauty, by Z. Smith (Hamish Hamilton 2005). Sociological Forum 24(2). . (2002). Review of Covering Immigration: Popular Images and the Politics of the Nation, by Leo
  Chavez (University of California 2001). International Migration Review 36(2). HONORS AND AWARDS
  Guggenheim Fellowship ($50,000) 2017-2018 Asian Americans in Suburban America: Academic Competition, Youth Culture, and Racial Change
  Russell Sage Foundation, Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration Program 2016-2018 Research Grant for project: Asian Americans in Suburban America: Academic Competition, Youth
  Culture, and Racial Change ($119,000)
  Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
  Research Grant for Affirmative Action in Higher Education Around the World ($2,500)
  Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
  Author’s Workshop and Discretionary Grant for The Diversity Bargain ($7,500)
  2015-16 2014-15 2013-2014
  2013-2014 2012
  2011-2012
  2010-2011
  2010
  2010 2008-2009
  Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Small Grant ($10,000)
  “Disentangling the simultaneous influence of school and neighborhood contexts on youth weight status” With T. Richmond
  Visiting Scholar, Russell Sage Foundation, New York, NY
  Thomas and Znaniecki Best Book Award, for Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City
  International Migration Section, American Sociological Association
  Northeastern University Collaborative Research Cluster ($2,000)
  “Access, Choice, and Involvement in Urban Public Schools: A Networked Perspective”
  Harvard President’s Innovation Fund for Faculty ($15,000)
  Course on Qualitative Social Science Research (with M. Lamont and R. Khurana)
  William E. Milton Fund Grant, Harvard University ($37,462)
  “Elite Undergraduates on Multiculturalism and Immigration: A Cross-National Study”
  Curriculum Improvement Grant, Harvard University ($2,420) British Academy, Small Research Grant ($15,000)
  “Discourses on Multiculturalism among University Students in Britain and the United States”
  Nuffield Foundation, Social Science Small Grant ($18,400)
  “Racial and Ethnic Boundaries in London and New York Multicultural Schools: The Role of School Structures”
  American Sociological Association Section on Children and Youth, Best Student Paper Award 2006
  4
  2007-2008
  NATASHA KUMAR WARIKOO
  Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Dissertation Research Award Harvard University ($20,000 + tuition)
  National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Award ($7,500) National Science Foundation-IGERT Doctoral Fellow, Harvard University
  Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy, ($25,500 + tuition)
  SELECTED RECENT PRESENTATIONS and INVITED LECTURES
  2004-2005
  2004-2005 2003-2004
  The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities
   Plenary Address, Brown University Diversity and Inclusion Summit
   Invited Lecture, New York University Steinhardt School of Education
   Author-Meets-Critics Session, Eastern Sociological Society Conference
   Harvard Graduate School of Education Distinguished Author Lecture
   Invited Lecture, Brandeis University, Depts of Sociology and Education
   Reading, Harvard Bookstore
   Invited Lecture, University of North Carolina Center for European Studies
   Invited Lecture, Indiana University, Bloomington, Dept of Sociology
   Speaker, Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
  Speaker, Harvard Graduate School of Education 8x8
  The Diversity Bargain: Why the Way We Talk About Affirmative Action Prevents Progress toward Racial Justice
  Panelist, Harvard Graduate School of Education Askwith Forum
  Free Speech and Safe Spaces: A False Dichotomy?
  Discussant, Eastern Sociological Society
  What does School Mean to Immigrants?
  Moderator, Harvard Graduate School of Education Askwith Forum
  Race(ing) to Class With Richard Milner
  Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Invited Conference on Educating Elites
  Mar. 2017 Feb. 2017 Feb. 2017 Nov. 2016 Nov. 2016 Oct. 2016 Sept. 2016 Sept 2016 Aug. 2016
  Aug. 2016
  April 2016
  Mar. 2016
  Oct. 2015
  June 2015
  Speaker, Diversity and Inclusion: French and American perspectives, Feb. 2017 Harvard Kennedy School
  Invited Participant. American Education Research Association Research Conference: Sept. 2016 The Educational Benefits of Diversity from Kindergarten through Graduate School.
  Teachers College, Columbia University.
  What Merit Means: Admissions, Race, and Inequality at Elite Universities in the United States and Britain
  Eastern Sociological Society Annual Meeting, New York, NY Feb. 2015 What Merit Means: Admissions, diversity, and inequality at elite universities in the United States and Britain
  Invited Lecture, Sarah Lawrence College Conference, Liberal Arts in an Unequal Society Nov. 2014 What Merit Means: College Admissions, Race, and Inequality
  Invited Lecture, Harvard Sociology of Culture Workshop Nov. 2014 What Merit Means: Admissions, diversity, and inequality at elite universities in the United States and Britain
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  NATASHA KUMAR WARIKOO
  Moderator, Harvard Graduate School of Education Askwith Forum Oct. 2014
  The End of Race-Based College Admissions? With Sheryl Cashin and Richard Rothstein
  Invited Lecture, Department of Sociology Colloquium, University of Pennsylvania Mar. 2014
  What Merit Means: Admissions, diversity, and inequality at elite universities in the United States and Britain
  Invited Lecture, Department of Sociology Immigration Seminar, CUNY Graduate Center Mar. 2014 What Merit Means: Admissions, diversity, and inequality at elite universities in the United States and Britain
  Council for European Studies, Washington, D.C. Mar. 2014 National Identity among Young Elites in the United States and Britain
  Invited Lecture, Department of Sociology Colloquium, Columbia University Nov. 2013 What Merit Means: Admissions, diversity, and inequality at elite universities in the United States and Britain
  American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, New York, NY
  What Merit Means: Undergraduates at Elite Institutions in the United States and Britain on University Admissions
  Invited Lecture, Qualitative Social Science at Harvard Conference:
  Directions in Knowledge Making from the Harvard Faculty
  Culture, Status, and Diversity: What I learned from cross-national qualitative research in US and British Education settings
  Invited Lecture, One Harvard: Lectures that Last
  All Kids Want to Learn
  Eastern Sociological Society Annual Meeting, Boston, MA
  Aug.2013
  April 2013
  April 2013 Mar.2013
  Diversity and Colorblindness: Competing Race Frames among Undergraduates at Elite
  Universities (with J. de Novais)
  Mini-conference on Comparative Cultural Sociology:
  What Merit Means: Undergraduates at Elite Institutions in the US and Britain on University Admissions
  Invited Lecture, Gutman Library Distinguished Author Series, Harvard University
  Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City
  Invited Lecture, Educators of Color Leadership Conference, Boston, MA
  Courageous Conversations across Cultural Difference in Schools
  Invited Lecture, Civic and Moral Education Initiative, HGSE
  What Merit Means: Undergraduates at Elite Institutions in Britain and the United States Make Meaning of the Admissions Process
  Invited Lecture, School of Oriental and Asian Studies, University of London
  Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City
  Fair Admissions Conference, University of Manchester, UK
  Talent, Cultivation, and Diversity: Undergraduates at Elite Institutions in Britain and the United States Make Meaning of the Admissions Process
  Feb. 2013 Jan. 2013 Nov. 2011
  July 2011 July 2011
  6
  NATASHA KUMAR WARIKOO Invited Lecture, Brown University Urban Education Policy Colloquium:
  Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City
  Invited Lecture, Alumnae of Color Conference, HGSE
  Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City
  Invited Lecture, Penn State University, Educational Theory and Policy Program
  Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City
  Harvard-Brazil Symposium on Education, Salvador, Brazil Council for European Studies, Montreal
  Young Elite Conceptions of British Identity and Immigrant Assimilation
  American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco
  Second Generation Afro-Caribbean and Indian Perceptions of Racial Discrimination in NY and London Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism Annual Conference, London, UK April 2009 Young Elite Conceptions of British Identity and Immigrant Assimilation
  London Migration Research Group Seminar Presentation Nov. 2008 Second Generation Indian and Afro-Caribbean Perceptions of Racial Discrimination in NY and London
  Invited Lectures to joint conference, Disley, UK June 2008 Harvard-Manchester Summer Workshop on Immigration and Social Change in Britain and the US, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being: Balancing Acts: Youth Culture among Children of Immigrants in New York and London;
  and Conducting Cross-National Comparative Research on the Immigrant Second Generation
  Invited Paper, International Workshop on Education, Migration and Citizenship, NYC Organized by Social Science Research Council and Nuffield Foundation
  British and American University Students’ Understandings of Diversity and Multiculturalism
  American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, New York
  Racial Authenticity among Second Generation Youth in Multiethnic New York and London
  Oxford University, Centre on Migration Policy and Society (COMPAS) Annual Conf.
  The Ethnic and Racial Boundaries of Teenagers in Multiethnic New York and London
  Invited Lecture, Copenhagen Business School
  Secondary Education and Race Relations in New York and London: Lessons for the Multiethnic European City
  Invited Lecture, the Children of Immigrants in Schools NSF Project, New Paltz, NY Conducting Cross-National Qualitative Research
  Institute for the Study of the Americas and British Library, London, England Conference: America’s Americans: The Populations of the United States
  Race and the Symbolic Boundaries of Teenagers in New York City and London
  Invited Lecture, University of Sussex, Department of American Studies, Sussex, England Authenticity and Taste Preferences among Teenagers in London and New York City
  Dec. 2007
  Aug. 2007 July 2007 Oct. 2006
  June 2006 May 2006
  April 2006
  7
  April 2011
  Mar. 2011
  Dec. 2010
  Aug. 2010 April 2010
  Aug. 2009
  NATASHA KUMAR WARIKOO Council for European Studies Conference, Chicago
  Race and the Symbolic Boundaries of Teenagers in London and New York City
  Invited Lecture, University of Manchester Department of Sociology, Manchester, England Youth Culture and Peer Status among Children of Immigrants in London and New York
  COURSES TAUGHT AND ADVISING
  Academic Courses for MEd and PhD students at Harvard
  Mar. 2006 Nov. 2005
   Action Research
   Cultural Influences on Racial and Ethnic Inequality in Education
   Culture, Institutions, and Society, PhD Core Course
   Diversity and Excellence in Higher Education in Comparative Perspective
   Doctoral Student Advisor: R. Bassett, J. Fei, N. Foley, J. Hampton, A. MacKall. D. Penn, L. Shen
   Completed: L. Stolte (2015), U. Allen (2017), J. de Novais (2017).
   EdD dissertation secondary reader: S. Deckman, J. Jacobs, K. Kokka, P. Lee, K. Liiv, C. Zhang, S.
  Zuilkowski
   MA thesis secondary reader: D. Bartz, A. Cheung, E. Contreras, R. Higginson, K. Kokka, J. Lee,
  P.Lee, K. Liiv, C. Pollard, T. Wooten (sociology), X. Xiang, C. Valdivia, L. Yoshikawa
   International Visiting Scholar host: Ruy de Deus (2013, 2017); Annabelle Allouch (2015); Bateer
  Chen (2015); Berenice Scandone (2016); Li Chen (2016)
  University of London, School of Advanced Study
   Courses: Immigrant Incorporation in the United States; Racial Inequality in the United States; Research Methods  MA Thesis advisor: A. Freeman (Distinction); J. Sharratt (Merit); B. Kolenikova (Merit)
  UNIVERSITY SERVICE
  Ph.D. Steering Committee, HGSE 2014-15, 2016-pres Culture, Institutions and Society Doctoral Program Chair 2016-pres Admissions Committee and Student Advisor, International Education Policy MEd Program, HGSE 2009-pres
  HGSE Dean’s Advisory Committee on Equity and Diversity,
  Founder and Organizer, Sociology of Education Workshop, Harvard University
  Harvard University Committee on Diversity (Chair, Subcommittee on Benefits of Diversity) Committee on Rights and Responsibilities, HGSE
  Qualitative Social Sciences at Harvard University, Steering Committee
  Admissions Committee, Doctoral Program, HGSE
  Committee on Curriculum and Instruction, HGSE
  Board of Freshman Advisors, Harvard College
  Committee on Degrees, Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE)
  SELECTED OTHER WORK EXPERIENCE
  Workshops on Immigration and Education for Educators
   Harvard Program in Professional Education, May 2015
  2012-13, 2015-16 2011-2015 2014-2015 2014-2015 2012-2013 2012-2013 2012-2013 2012-2013 2009-2012
  o Educating Immigrant Students: 3-day program for teachers and administrators  Prince George’s County, summer 2016-present
  o Supporting Immigrant Youth: 3-day summer workshops for teachers and school staff
  8
  NATASHA KUMAR WARIKOO
  Instructor and Teaching Fellow, Harvard University, Department of Sociology 2002- 2003
   Instructor: Sophomore Tutorial, course on sociological theory
   Teaching Fellow: American Society (undergraduates) and Qualitative Methods (PhD students)
  Researcher, Immigrant Second Generation in New York Study, 2001-2003 Harvard University and City University of New York Graduate Center
   Collected and analyzed qualitative and quantitative data on 3,500 second-generation young adults Teacher, Manhattan International High School (full-time), NYC Department of Education 1997-2000
  Fellow, Teachers Network Leadership Institute 1999-2000
   Met with education policy-makers, including New York schools Chancellor
   Teacher representative to national conferences and legislative hearings on education reform
  Consultant, US Department of Education, Washington, D.C. 1998-1999 Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs (now English Language Acquisition)
   Worked with Director on reauthorization legislation for 1994 Improving America’s Schools Act Teacher, The Computer School (middle school, full-time), NYC Department of Education 1995-1996
  OTHER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
  Journal Editorial Board Member: Identities (2013-present); Sociology of Education (2015-present); Whiteness and Education (2015-present)
  Member, Louis Wirth Best Article Award Selection Committee,
  American Sociological Association Section on International Migration, 2017
  Member, James Coleman Award for Outstanding Article Selection Committee, American Sociological Association Section on Sociology of Education, 2015
  Member, Pre-Dissertation Research Fellowships in European Studies Selection Committee, Council for European Studies, 2015
  Chair, Thomas and Znaneicki Best Book Award Selection Committee, American Sociological Association Section on International Migration, 2013
  Member of:
   American Sociological Association, 2002-Present
  o Sections: Sociology of Culture, Sociology of Education, International Migration, Racial and Ethnic Minorities
   American Educational Research Association, 2006-Present
   Council for European Studies, 2005-Present
   Eastern Sociological Society, 2012-Present
  Reviewer for American Journal of Education; American Journal of Public Health; Ashgate Press; Columbia University Press; Comparative Education Review; Critical Sociology; Du Bois Review; Ethnic and Racial Studies; Gender and Society; Identities; Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; Nationalism and Ethnic Politics; New York University Press; Pearson Press; Poetics; Qualitative Sociology; Review of Educational Research; Sex Roles; Social Problems; Sociological Perspectives; Sociological Theory; Sociology of Education; Teachers College Press; Teachers College Record
  Interviews and research have appeared in: BBC4, Boston Public Radio, Christian Science Monitor, Houston Chronicle, Minnesota Public Radio, New York Times (also here), Reuters, Times Higher Education (UK), Al-Jazeera English, amNY, Globo (TV news in Brazil), Yale Daily News
  9
  NATASHA KUMAR WARIKOO
  Last updated May 1, 2017
  See www.natashawarikoo.com for updated information
  10

• Author Homepage - https://natashawarikoo.com

  About
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  **NEW BOOK: The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities**

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  University of Chicago Press 20% off Discount Code for The Diveristy Bargain: UCPNEW

  Curriculum Vitae

  Natasha Kumar Warikoo is Associate Professor of Education at Harvard University. She is an expert on the relationships between education, racial and ethnic diversity, and cultural processes in schools and universities. Her most recent book, The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities (University of Chicago Press, 2016), illuminates 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. Natasha’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 Znaneicki Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association’s International Migration Section. Both of these projects involve extensive ethnographic research in the United States and Britain. In 2017-2018 Warikoo will be a Guggenheim Fellow, studying racial change in suburban America.

  Natasha’’s research has also been published in scholarly journals (American Journal of Education; British Education Research Journal; Educational Researcher; Poetics; Race, Ethnicity and Education; Ethnic and Racial Studies (also here); Review of Educational Research; Sociological Forum), edited books, and newspapers (Education Week, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post), and she has won grants and awards from American Sociological Association, the British Academy, National Science Foundation, Nuffield Foundation, and Russell Sage Foundation. Her recent articles can be accessed for free here.

  At Harvard Natasha teaches courses on racial inequality and the role of culture in K-12 and higher education. She serves as co-chair of the School Advisory Council of her children’s public elementary school in Cambridge, and has been actively involved in the political process in Cambridge. Prior to her academic career Natasha was a teacher in New York City’s public schools for four years, and also spent time working at the US Department of Education and as a fellow with the Teachers Network Leadership Institute. Natasha 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.

  See Natasha’s Scholars Strategy Network profile to learn more.

  Contact Natasha at: natasha_warikoo-at-gse.harvard.edu or 617-495-2488

• Scholars Strategy Network - http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/scholar/natasha-warikoo

  Natasha Warikoo

  warikoo.natasha's picture
  Associate Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  6 Appian Way, 4th floor, Gutman Library
  Cambridge, MA 02138
  Natasha_warikoo@gse.harvard.edu
  @nkwarikoo
  Natasha Warikoo
  AREAS OF EXPERTISE & CIVIC INVOLVEMENTS

  Warikoo is an expert on the relationships between education, racial and ethnic diversity, and cultural processes in schools and universities. Her most recent book, The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities (University of Chicago Press, 2016), illuminates 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. Warikoo teaches courses on racial inequality and the role of culture in K-12 and higher education. She serves as co-chair of the School Advisory Council of her children’s public elementary school in Cambridge, and has been actively involved in the political process in Cambridge. Prior to her academic career, Warikoo was a teacher in New York City’s public schools for four years, spent time working at the U.S. Department of Education, and served as a fellow with the Teachers Network Leadership Institute.

  BRIEFS

  How the Ways College Authorities Talk about Diversity Can Undercut Efforts to Fight Racial Inequality
  SSN Key Findings, July 2016
  SCHOLAR SPOTLIGHTS

  The Diversity Bargain
  January 2017
  KEY PUBLICATIONS

  The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming).
  Highlights the implications of affirmative action’s legal defense of “diversity” for undergraduate students’ understandings of race and fairness in college admissions. Demonstrates how elite universities shape their students’ conceptions of race and meritocracy. Compares Ivy League and Oxford students and students of different racial identities.
  "Colorblindness and Diversity: Race Frames and Their Consequences for White Undergraduates at Elite US Universities" (with Janine de Novais). Ethnic and Racial Studies 38, no. 6 (2015): 860-876.
  Analyzes the ways that white students at Ivy League universities think about race, and the implications of the color-blind, diversity, and power analysis perspectives for race relations on campus and student views of affirmative action.

  "Beyond the Numbers: Institutional Influences on Experiences with Diversity on Elite College Campuses" (with Sherry Deckman). Sociological Forum 29, no. 4 (2014): 959-981.
  Analyzes how two Ivy League campuses shape students’ understandings of the role of race in society. Presents how one campus develops a deep understanding of race in US history for students involved in campus programming on diversity, alienating many white students, while the other emphasizes integration, providing little depth to students’ understanding of racial inequality but bringing students together across lines of difference.
  "Legitimating Status: Perceptions of Meritocracy and Inequality among Undergraduates at an Elite British University" (with Christina Fuhr). British Education Research Journal 40, no. 4 (2014): 699-717.
  Demonstrates how white students at Oxford University maintain the legitimacy of their status by ignoring the social inequality that leads to the lack of diversity—both by class and by race—on the Oxford campus. Discusses how students express deep faith in the supposedly meritocratic system of admissions, despite the significant underrepresentation of black and working class students on campus.
  Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City (University of California Press, 2011).
  Presents an ethnography of two high schools, one in New York City and one in London, demonstrating that children of diverse family backgrounds attending low-performing urban schools struggle to meet two goals which sometimes come into conflict despite their best intentions: a desire for peer status, and a desire to do well in school. Shows that most children want to do well in school and care deeply about it, even while their behaviors may not reflect those desires, and provides more convincing explanations for behaviors that seem to belie their academic goals.
  MEDIA CONTRIBUTIONS

  Interview on diversity on college campuses, Huffington Post, March 30, 2017.
  Natasha Warikoo's research on a 'diversity bargain' discussed in Rose Courteau, "The Problem with How Higher Education Treats Diversity," The Atlantic, October 28, 2016.
  "Who is Affirmative Action for?," Boston Globe , June 23, 2016.
  Natasha Warikoo quoted on race and education in Kirk Carapezza, "Black College Students Major in Fields That Offer Lower Economic Payoffs, Study Finds" WGBH News , February 18, 2016.
  Natasha Warikoo quoted on disparities in school in Alex Dobuzinskis, "U.S. Study Finds Teacher Bias in Discipline toward Black Students" Reuters, April 15, 2015.
  Guest to discuss her research on elite university admissions on BBC Radio 4 , October 14, 2013.
  Natasha Warikoo quoted on meritocracy in higher education in Jack Grove, "Oxford Students Deny Role of Class in Elite Admissions" Times Higher Education, August 22, 2013.
  Natasha Warikoo quoted on merit-based admissions, "Harvard Professor Saw Danger of Dysfunctional ‘Meritocracy’ in Affirmative Action Case" MPR News , June 23, 2013.
  "Who Gets Admitted to College?," Los Angeles Times, June 20, 2013.
  Natasha Warikoo quoted on immigration assimulation in Sewell Chan, "Hindu Priest from Guyana is Mourned in Queens" New York Times , June 18, 2009.
  "Two Schools, Worlds Apart: Lessons from London on How Small Schools Help Foster Racial Integration," Education Week, April 11, 2006.
  "In a Teenage Waistland, Fitting In," July 31, 2005.
  Natasha Warikoo quoted on racial data in higher education in Joseph Berger , "Indian, Twice Removed" New York Times , December 17, 2004.
  TALKS AND BRIEFINGS

  "What Merit Means: Admissions, Race, and Inequality at Elite Universities in the United States and Britain," Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Invited Conference, June 1, 2015.
  "What Merit Means: College Admissions, Race, and Inequality," Sarah Lawrence College Conference: Liberal Arts in an Unequal Society, Bronxville, November 1, 2014.
  "The End of Race-Based College Admissions?," (with Sheryl Cashin and Richard Rothstein), Harvard Graduate School of Education Askwith Forum, Cambridge, October 1, 2014.
  "What Merit Means: Admissions, Diversity, and Inequality at Elite Universities in the United States and Britain," University of Pennsylvania, March 1, 2014.
  "What Merit Means: Admissions, Diversity, and Inequality at Elite Universities in the United States and Britain," CUNY Graduate Center, March 1, 2014.
  "What Merit Means: Admissions, Diversity, and Inequality at Elite Universities in the United States and Britain," Columbia University, November 1, 2013.
  "Courageous Conversations across Cultural Difference in Schools," Educators of Color Leadership Conference, Boston, January 1, 2013.

The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of
Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite
Universities
Publishers Weekly.
263.33 (Aug. 15, 2016): p58. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities Natasha K. Warikoo. Univ. of Chicago, $26 (320p) ISBN 978-0-226-40014-3
This book highlights a persistent question facing diversity efforts in higher education: how do universities make the case for diversity in the highly selective, competitive, and rigorous environments that define them as elite institutions? Warikoo, a Harvard professor, bases her conclusions on interviews with students at her home institution, at Brown University, and at Oxford. Her narrow sample has empirical limitations, but Warikoo makes a case for these conversations as proving grounds for four perspectives that students use to understand race: color-blindness, diversity, power analysis, and the "culture of poverty." These frames are an effective foundation to support Warikoo's larger conclusion, that "many white students expressed what I term the diversity bargain: ambivalent support for affirmative action as long as they benefited through a diverse campus, and as along as black and Latino peers didn't seem to deprive them of success in other competitive endeavors." Many institutions have embedded the diversity bargain in their own marketing for multicultural programming. The author provocatively laments that by adopting such rhetoric, universities--and the students that they influence--may limit their ability to make real social change. (Nov.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities."
Publishers Weekly, 15 Aug. 2016, p. 58. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA461444560&it=r&asid=3e6fd0a8e9adb7c405139b81ededf4d7. Accessed 14 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A461444560
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"The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities." Publishers Weekly, 15 Aug. 2016, p. 58. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA461444560&it=r. Accessed 14 May 2017. about:blank Page 1 of 1

• Times Higher Education
  https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/review-the-diversity-bargain-natasha-warikoo-university-of-chicago-press
  Word count: 1658

  The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions and Meritocracy at Elite Universities, by Natasha K. Warikoo
  Book of the week: Universities pay lip service to minorities while maintaining the status quo, says Kalwant Bhopal

  October 27, 2016
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  By Kalwant Bhopal
  Twitter: @KalwantBhopal
  University of Cambridge students queueing on graduation day
  Source: Alamy
  We live in a society in which inequalities persist – and no more so than in higher education, particularly with respect to access to elite universities. In The Diversity Bargain, Natasha Warikoo outlines how students from minority non-white backgrounds on both sides of the Atlantic are less likely than their white peers to gain admission to elite universities. In the US, if you are black, Latino or from a working-class background, you are markedly less likely to study at an elite institution than your peers from white wealthy backgrounds. Similarly in the UK, black students are less likely to attend Oxbridge and other Russell Group institutions. Furthermore, the students whom Oxbridge accepts are much more likely to have been privately educated than those attending lower-ranked institutions.

  Why should this matter? It matters because attending an elite university has a significant impact on graduates’ future life chances, via access to social networks and to high-income employment that leads to greater social mobility. Here, Warikoo explores how such inequalities persist, particularly in relation to students’ understandings of race, meritocracy and inequality in elite universities in the US and the UK. By using the concept of “race frames” (lenses through which we observe, interpret and respond to our world), Warikoo considers the role of family, schooling and history in shaping how we see the world.

  These race frames are fundamental to understanding how inequality is reinforced in education. Colour-blindness is a race frame that ignores the role that race plays in society, despite evidence that shows, for example, marked disparities in access to university education by race. Those who are white ignore the role that race plays in their own lives, unaware that they see whiteness as the norm. The diversity race frame, in contrast, acknowledges difference and recognises that individuals are members of different racial and ethnic groups, which affects their ways of seeing and interpreting the world. The power analysis race frame views race inequality in relation to unequal power relations in society and the way that individuals are judged based on their cultural characteristics. Warikoo argues that it is crucial to understand how students use these race frames in order to understand the concept of merit and how it works in higher education. They are also key mechanisms that enable us to explore and understand how students explain the under-representation of black and ethnic minority students in their universities and the role that universities should play in challenging and addressing this inequality.

  Elite universities are widely seen as institutions that demonstrate that meritocracy and equal opportunity exist. Warikoo’s research suggests that students who are fortunate enough to gain a place at Oxbridge or an Ivy League university see themselves as members of an elite group who have been chosen by a fair and just process. These students’ notions of inclusion typically involve advocacy for symbolic rather than substantive change. So, for example, while University of Oxford students tended to support outreach programmes aimed at widening participation for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, they were less likely to support policies that actually result in more disadvantaged young people attending Oxford. Similarly, US students supported affirmative action policies that enabled African American and Latino students to attend Brown and Harvard universities, leading to greater diversity on campus, but they did not necessarily demonstrate a commitment to the representation of minority groups among the student cohort that is equal to their proportion in the US population as a whole. Paradoxically, although students acknowledged and were aware of the disadvantages of unequal representation at elite universities, at the same time they supported the status quo. Through their “diversity frame”, many students in Warikoo’s research thought that the admissions process should consider the collective merit of the university cohort so that their experience at university could be enriched. Warikoo suggests that many white students opt for a “diversity bargain”, that is, “ambivalent support for affirmative action as long as they benefitted through a diverse campus, and as long as Black and Latino peers didn’t seem to deprive them of success in other competitive endeavours”.

  As Warikoo observes, a belief in the notion that society is meritocratic is based on a belief in democracy and equality of opportunity, and “to question whether American democracy is fair is to question the very basis for our sense of what is good about America”. Similarly in the UK, “European elites tend to embrace the distinctions associated with being part of the elite class, identifying themselves based on exclusive cultural knowledge…that explicitly differentiates them from the majority of society”. Students in both countries shared a belief in a global elite that is colour-blind and legitimated by a meritocracy.

  In order to create an inclusive democracy, we must address issues of racial inequality and merit. Warikoo suggests three ways forward: defining the goals of democracy, addressing race in admissions processes and on university campuses, and acknowledging that the process of meritocracy is and always will be incomplete. Universities must demonstrate a greater commitment to affirmative action by race and class, and “calibration should be according to class, race and other circumstances; moreover it should consider the racial history of the United States and its ongoing effects”. American universities should aim to provide extra academic and social support for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and similar inclusive practices need to be undertaken in the UK, too. Implicit bias in universities’ selection processes must be considered, particularly in relation to the recognition of elite cultural markers in admissions decisions and processes. Furthermore, we must be honest and accept that those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds will continue to be disadvantaged in an admissions system that is demonstrably unfair. Warikoo even suggests scrapping the notion of meritocracy and the traditional selection process, and replacing it with an admissions lottery system, after identifying criteria for selection and entering all students who are over that bar. I doubt that this proposal would go down well with those from wealthy and privileged backgrounds, given its threat to their positions of status.

  Many of the young people attending these elite universities did not recognise that their upbringing and social privileges played a major part in getting them there. Students also assumed that peers who did not get a place at Brown, Harvard or Oxford were simply not as bright. A meritocracy does not create a more equal society; it simply reinforces the reality that access to elite universities is divided by race and class. As long as we continue to live in a society in which background and privilege determine future success, then inequalities in higher education and in access to elite universities will persist. Those groups with access to such privilege will continue to protect their position and inherited status within it. At its most obvious, it is an example of those in elite positions justifying their right to maintain their own advantage by defending its legitimacy.

  Kalwant Bhopal is professor of education and social justice, University of Southampton. She is co-author, with Martin Myers, of Alternative Education: Race, Class and Gender Inequalities, which will be published in 2017.

  The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions and Meritocracy at Elite Universities
  By Natasha K. Warikoo
  University of Chicago Press, 320pp, £18.00
  ISBN 9780226400143 and 0280 (e‑book)
  Published 14 November 2016

  The author

  Author Natasha Warikoo, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  Source:
  Jill Anderson
  Natasha Warikoo, associate professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, was born in Pennsylvania to parents who immigrated from India.

  “I’d say my analytic mind and desire to address inequality and injustice come from my father, who often brought up news of oppression at home. I remember him making us watch Eyes on the Prize, a documentary on the civil rights movement, when I was 13. My older brother was also a strong influence – he was constantly reading newspapers, and as a little sister who idolised him, I found that world fascinating. My emotional side comes from my mother, who taught me to care deeply and express love for those I care about.”

  As an undergraduate at Brown University, Warikoo recalls being “mostly confused. Although my parents went to college, they did so in India, so I didn’t really know how to navigate this elite American institution. But I loved being able to take classes on so many different subjects and topics, and engaging in deep discussions with my peers.”

  Is it realistic to expect privileged white students to support initiatives that might reduce their own advantages at university and beyond?

  “If we frame this issue around equity and justice, yes – I do think white university students, like most young adults, have a strong sense of justice and will recognise what is fair. There are so many historical instances of folks joining movements that promote justice not just for their own groups but because they felt a moral imperative. Guilt may be the first emotion we feel when we realise we have benefited from privilege. Then the question is, what do we do with that feeling. I think those white students who have anti-racist, pro-widening-participation attitudes have accepted their privileges and decided to do something productive with them. I think this is a good thing.”

  Karen Shook

  Read more about: Social science
  Related universities

• The Atlantic
  https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/10/trading-identity-for-acceptance/505619/
  Word count: 2194

  The Problem With How Higher Education Treats Diversity
  What is lost when disadvantaged students are forced to commodify their backgrounds for the sake of college admissions?

  The author Natasha Warikoo examines how affirmative often forces students to omit or exaggerate certain aspects of their identity.
  Nick Ut / AP

  ROSE COURTEAU OCT 28, 2016 EDUCATION
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  Shortly after moving to New York two years ago, I began volunteering as a writing mentor at Minds Matter, a large, multi-city nonprofit that helps prepare underserved high-school students for college. Just a few months earlier, I’d graduated from a liberal-arts college I’d attended after participating in a similar program, and I felt both obliged to pay my good fortune forward and uniquely qualified to do so. If my experience had taught me anything, it was the power of a compelling personal narrative.

  By the time I’d decided, mid-way through high school, that I wanted to attend college—and not just any college, but a competitive one, filled with Gothic Revival buildings and storied histories—I had to contend with a spotty transcript, virtually no extracurriculars, and an SAT math score inferior to that of many middle schoolers. Then I heard about QuestBridge, a nonprofit that connects low-income youth with top schools.

  Next America: Higher Education
  Understanding the opportunity and achievement gaps in U.S. universities
  Read more

  “Students from low-income backgrounds may not realize that they have a unique perspective to present to admissions officers,” the organization’s website explains. “If your identity has been shaped by financial difficulties and other obstacles, consider writing about these challenges in your essays so that admissions officers understand the full context of your successes and academic accomplishments.” It provides a bullet-point list of potential topics, such as: English is not your first language; You’ve been homeless; You commute a long distance to attend a better school. If I were to succeed, I would need to leverage precisely the circumstances that had, conceivably, held me back. My personal statement portrayed a poor girl from a large Arkansas family, raised in a fringe religion and eager to explore the big world beyond. It wasn’t untrue, exactly, but it felt like a lie by omission, or perhaps oversimplification. My life was more than a tale of woe.

  If I felt guilty about exploiting my background to appeal to colleges looking to build a well-rounded class, I also felt grateful for the opportunity. I still do; it's unlikely I would have gotten the education I did if I hadn't. But as I help my Minds Matter mentees, now seniors, apply to colleges this fall—and in some cases, complete the same QuestBridge application I did when I was their age—it has become harder to maintain this ambivalence. I don’t want my students to reduce their own lives to stories of hardship—or, at least, I don’t want them to feel that they need to in order to earn a berth at the college they choose.

  Still, the pressure for students—particularly underrepresented nonwhite and low-income applicants—to package themselves like this is acute at a time when “diversity” remains the only rationale for affirmative action that the Supreme Court has consistently upheld, most recently in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas. It routinely cites the importance of diversity in the global marketplace, where companies praise it as a catalyst for creativity and link it with greater financial returns. (“We know intuitively that diversity matters,” declared a recent report from McKinsey.) Yet for something so widely desired, what diversity means and why people want it remain unclear. My boss at a magazine where I once worked asked me to find images of a youth choir that—she paused, unsure how to proceed—“showed its diversity.” I nodded furtively and, a few minutes later, produced several photos with white and brown faces floating above identical purple blouses.

  The cover of Natasha Warikioo's "The Diversity Bargain"
  The University of Chicago Press
  Such are the paradoxes that Natasha Warikoo examines in her new book The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy Elite Universities. Inspired by her own experience as an Indian American student in the 1990s and, later, as a visiting professor at the University of London, Warikoo, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, set out to understand how students of various backgrounds at Brown, Harvard, and Oxford conceive of diversity and merit in the college-admission process. Particularly in the U.S., where universities emphasize their “holistic” evaluations of applicants and, studies show, calibrate SAT scores depending on a variety of factors including race, legacy status, and athletic recruitment, she was curious how students justified the practice. Reasoning that elite colleges tend to espouse relatively progressive views and that their students—having gained entree to the world’s most prized institutions—would presumably have little reason to resent affirmative action, she decided this sample would provide insights into “the best-case scenario in terms of support for racial inclusion.”

  What Warikoo finds at Brown and Harvard is a mixed bag: Students praise diversity and support affirmative action, but mostly by striking what she coins the “diversity bargain”: Rather than accepting it as a means of amelioration for systemic inequality, they support it on the assumption that it increases the student body’s collective merit, enriching the college experience for all. Time and again, she comes across students like Stephanie, a white history major at Harvard, who says “race needs to be considered” because an “ethnically diverse community is beneficial to everyone and is such an integral part of the Harvard education.” This view, Warikoo deftly demonstrates, is held by a majority of students of all racial identifications, and it aligns strongly with that of their schools. “We will consider how your unique talents, accomplishments, energy, curiosity, perspective, and identity might weave into the ever-changing tapestry that is Brown University,” reads the mission statement on its admissions webpage.

  If an “ever-changing tapestry” sounds delightfully chic, it also reflects an understanding of egalitarianism as an aesthetic instead of a social ideal. The Diversity Bargain illuminates just how much diversity has been commodified particularly among the elite, for whom good taste entails an eclectic palate. This wasn’t always so: Warikoo cites research from the sociologists Richard Peterson and Roger Kern, who nearly 20 years ago identified a shift in cosmopolitan sensibilities from favoring narrowly defined “high” forms of culture (Western classical music, abstract art) to what they termed “cultural omnivorousness.” Warikoo’s interviews with students reveal this appetite extends to “interpersonal familiarity” with students of various aptitudes, affinities, and identifications. Diversity exists to be consumed by the student body to achieve a balanced diet of multiculturalism.

  Still, there is great reluctance, even discomfort, on the part of admissions offices to acknowledge race as a consideration in their evaluation process. Neither Brown nor Harvard explicitly does so, instead using words like “perspective” and “identity” to describe admissions considerations. Williams College, my own alma mater, doesn’t either, although on its website this fall, the percentage of students of color and those who are the first generation in their families to attend college is enlarged to about twice the size of the other demographic statistics. This allusiveness seems an inevitable result of the incoherence Warikoo highlights between k-12 education, which teaches children color-blindness, and the academy, where difference is extolled. It also likely reflects an increasingly mainstream understanding of race as a construct and identity as fluid. In this context, anxiety, particularly for whites, comes in the form of a question: How do you recognize a current reality (race) whose meaning isn’t fixed without institutionalizing it? The decision many make is not to name the reality at all.

  What if they add no discernibly “unique” perspective of black culture or rural poverty or the immigrant experience to student life?
  Warikoo is slightly more narrow in assessing this cognitive dissonance, highlighting research (including her own) that reveals the paranoia of many white Americans who are “primed to see reverse discrimination in the future,” even if they have never experienced it themselves. Yet even if well-intentioned, the result is a quasi-colorblind, need-blind approach that places the onus on students to make their own experiences outside of the white middle-class legible to admissions committees if they wish admission criteria to be calibrated according to the opportunities they have—or have not—been afforded. “Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it,” reads The Common Application’s most popular prompt. “If this sounds like you, then please share your story.” It’s an appealingly capacious invitation, but it also subtly casts applicants’ “backgrounds” or “identities” in the same terms as an “interest” or “talent,” and it’s perhaps unsurprising that many of the students Warikoo interviewed do the same, recontextualizing the consideration of race and income in admissions with comparisons that avoid questions of inequality altogether. When asked “whether diversity creates problems for the university,” a student named Elliot, like many of his peers, spoke about athletic recruits:

  Before I applied, I didn’t like [the fact that] it’s really easy for ... recruited athletes ... I’ve had issues with that. Now that I’m here, I don’t have those issues. Because I see, like I love going to the foot-ball games. It’s fun. It’s part of the student life ... I used to think that ... having athletes who are quote/unquote “less qualified”—I no longer view them as less qualified. I view them as qualified in a different way.
  This reasoning may seem benign, but its implications become disturbing when you replace “athletes” with “poor” or “minority” students: What if they are no fun? What if they add no discernibly “unique” perspective of black culture or rural poverty or the immigrant experience to student life? Do they still deserve an education and all of the benefits—and joys—it can confer?

  Warikoo’s research may be limited in scope, but it offers a particularly focused lens through which to view the cultural moment. Support for diversity is at a fever pitch, complete with hashtags (#OscarsSoWhite) and trendy merchandise emblazoned with the all-caps imperative to READ FEWER WHITE DUDES—an unintentionally parodic illustration of diversity’s commodification writ large. Yet as Warikoo shows, when calls for diversity aren’t accompanied by material efforts to equalize opportunity, an idealized image of equality threatens to replace the pursuit of the thing itself.

  Last year, the author Claire Vaye Watkins addressed students at Tin House Writers’ Workshop with a lecture, “On Pandering,” in which she described the revelation that, for much of her career, she had been writing for a white male literary establishment. She deemed her debut collection of short stories an exercise in projection: What would the Philip Roths of the world think of her work? What about the Jonathan Franzens? She encouraged the workshop to “embrace a do-it-yourself canon, wherein we each make our own canon filled with what we love to read, what speaks to us and challenges us and opens us up, wherein we can each determine our artistic lineages for ourselves, with curiosity and vigor, rather than trying to shoehorn ourselves into a canon ready made and gifted us.” Her words went viral among a certain literary set as a minor cause celebre: We need more women writers! More queer writers! More writers of color!

  This is true. And yet the ideal Watkins expressed was not merely that these demographics write, but that they do so without inhibition, accessing their own particular sensibilities and imaginations—in short, to treat their own experiences as ends in themselves. It’s an exhilarating prospect, and it runs entirely counter to the task of writing what one might call the adversity narrative, which requires its author to instrumentalize her consciousness rather than explore it. This is precisely why, when my mentees fill my inbox with drafts of their essays, I want to help them resist the temptation. It’s also why Warikoo’s argument for a much more “robust, ongoing affirmative-action policy by calibrating admissions decisions according to a student’s opportunities” is doubly convincing: She attacks the premise of collective merit because it makes the inclusion of the less advantaged contingent on the benefits that will accrue to the rest. But it also requires the less powerful to pander to visions of powerlessness, so that sharing one’s own story becomes a compulsion rather than a privilege. It should be neither, but a gift, given freely.

  This article is part of our Next America: Higher Education project, which is supported by grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Lumina Foundation.

• Pop Matters
  http://www.popmatters.com/review/the-diversity-bargain-by-natasha-k-warikoo/
  Word count: 2115

  BY HANS ROLLMAN
  7 March 2017
  TODAY'S ELITE UNIVERSITIES AND STUDENTS CLAIM TO VALUE DIVERSITY. BUT DO THEY REALLY?
  cover art
  THE DIVERSITY BARGAIN: AND OTHER DILEMMAS OF RACE, ADMISSIONS, AND MERITOCRACY AT ELITE UNIVERSITIES
  NATASHA K. WARIKOO
  (UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS)
  US: NOV 2016

  AMAZON
  Are youth the hope of the future?

  The answer, according to Harvard researcher Natasha Warikoo, is a nuanced one. Her research focuses on students at elite universities—the leaders of tomorrow, if only statistically speaking—and her interest lies in how they understand diversity.

  If older generations tend to be characterized by a greater degree of social conservatism than younger generations—so the stereotype of ‘rebellious youth’ suggests—then surely the younger generations must have a more open and progressive frame of mind? Surely they’ve absorbed something of the imperative for a more diverse and equitable society?

  What do youth at elite universities—Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Brown—think of diversity? Do they support affirmative action programs? How do they understand systemic racism?

  Warikoo embarked on her research expecting to find that students at elite universities would be more open to affirmative action, and have a deeper critical analysis of the notion of meritocracy in the contemporary US and UK. After all, unlike their peers, they’ve never (or rarely) experienced setbacks in their lives: they’ve achieved admission to the most competitive universities in the land. Surely they have nothing to grumble about, or to blame on the perceived injustice of affirmative action? Surely the underrepresentation of minorities on American and British campuses leads them to recognize the shortcomings in their universities’ claims to meritocracy?

  Yet far from being rebellious and critical, Warikoo found that most students at elite universities in the US and UK have absorbed their universities’ claims about meritocracy and equality. With few exceptions, they defend and parrot the claims of their administrators that admissions is based on merit and equal opportunity. Warikoo’s disappointment at not finding more critical and rebellious youth—all stereotypes aside—is almost palpable at points.

  Which is not to say that these students’ perspectives on race and diversity are not intriguing and important to understand. After all, as Warikoo notes, these are more likely than not to be the leaders of tomorrow—in politics, finance, and intellectual life—so it’s important to know what beliefs and understandings they’re cultivating in their important formative college years.

  Warikoo finds a distinction between students at American and British elite universities in this regard. Both groups of students have developed what she refers to as ‘the diversity bargain’, but it assumes very different forms in each country.

  The American ‘diversity bargain’ is the more fully fleshed out of the two. In the US, students are more aware, more compelled, and more concerned about issues of race. Not being racist is a moral imperative among American students, and American students (particularly white ones) experience tremendous anxiety and fear that they might do something that is or is perceived to be racist. This shapes racial discourse in America—a reticence to tackling tough issues; a tendency to avoid them lest they generate offense. Americans perceive a lower threshold for the ‘hurtline’—the point at which discussion or humour might cause offense. They are, some might say, more prone to be ‘politically correct’. Many of them profess to support diversity and affirmative action.

  Their educational institutions, too, feel a greater sense of responsibility to tackle the problem of systemic injustices, through affirmative action admissions, for instance. This is in part because of the more powerful legacy of civil rights struggles in America, which led to the admission of a cohort of African Americans in the university system who continued the fight for greater equality as they rose into positions of prominence in academe. American institutions are deeply concerned with the need for diversity.

  But there’s a catch: a ‘diversity bargain’. Diversity is perceived as something that’s intended to benefit everyone, including white students. It isn’t defended as being a matter of social justice, but rather as the best way to equip young Americans to succeed in today’s world. White Americans (and other students with privilege) see diversity and affirmative action as something which is intended to benefit them, and so long as it appears to be doing that, they’re okay with it. But when diversity places barriers in their way—when they experience rejection in admissions or job applications or anything else which they can find reason to blame on affirmative action—they’re quick to criticize it, or to blame it for their own shortcomings.

  There’s a related imperative for minority or marginalized groups of students to appear to be living up to their ‘side’ of the ‘bargain’, i.e., giving the privileged groups exposure to their marginalized peers, and contributing to the privileged students’ education on diversity. When marginalized students form identity-based student groups, or hold events to which white students are not invited (or don’t think they’re welcome at), the privileged students become critical. They’re willing to support affirmative action in a society that considers diversity and cosmopolitanism a strength and source of social capital, but only insofar as it benefits them. “In the United States… white students supported affirmative action as long as it benefited them, namely through exposure to new perspectives. This led them to expect black and Latino students to integrate with their white peers and that affirmative action should not go ‘too far,’ such that whites begin to feel disadvantaged by it.”

  This is the result of what Warikoo calls a ‘diversity frame’ of understanding affirmative action, and it was one she and her researchers found common among American students. There are other frames: the ubiquitous ‘color-blind frame’, in which students profess that everyone is equal; and the ‘culture of poverty frame’ in which they find inherent faults in the marginalized group. A few students held a ‘power analysis frame’, the one Warikoo herself seems to favour and was hoping to find, which recognizes systemic power imbalances and is more associated with a social justice imperative.

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  In the UK, Warikoo found a different version of the ‘diversity bargain’. UK students, she found, felt less of a moral imperative to not be seen as racist, and found it easier to feel confident in shrugging off such accusations. Many of them were willing to push boundaries American students were not—making racist jokes, for instance. While American students considered silence in the face of racism to be a moral failure (not calling out racist jokes), British students didn’t feel the same imperative. They also did not, by and large, feel their universities had a responsibility to tackle the problems of underrepresentation of minorities on their campuses.

  Indeed, they were not as sensitive and cognizant as American students of the deep-seated social inequities which led to the exclusion of marginalized and minority students from elite universities and other bastions of privilege. They felt their university admissions systems should ensure the top students got in, regardless of what advantages and privileges those students had. In other words, they too absorbed the messaging of their university administrators—and its more overtly aristocratic legacy compared to American universities—without much critical analysis.

  But there came a trade-off, too. Privileged (read: white) UK students were less likely to question the successes of their minority group peers, since there was an accepted faith in the meritocratic basis of their university admissions systems. American students, while holding a more nuanced understanding of racial inequality and social injustice, were also quicker to resent and blame the mechanisms put in place to tackle those inequalities, especially when they experienced personal disadvantage as a result (or as a perceived result) of those equity mechanisms. They suspected many of their minority peers were there thanks to affirmative action, not thanks to their own accomplishments and abilities. British students on the other hand, were less inclined to feel that way.

  “I call this acceptance of minority students as unconditionally equal to their peers, in exchange for uncalibrated admissions and little acknowledgement of racial injustice on campus, the British diversity bargain,” writes Warikoo. However, she notes, “the lack of attention to inequality or to diversity denied the racialized experiences of minority students at Oxford.”

  Warikoo’s fascinating book, The Diversity Bargain and Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities, offers a fascinating, erudite and scholarly study of these phenomena. Through interviews with dozens of students at four elite universities in the US and UK, she explores the nuances of their perspectives on these issues. She also looks at different diversity-oriented programming offered at these campuses, and the varying impacts they have on the frames through which students understand their respective ‘diversity bargains’.

  There’s a qualified sense of hope here: it would seem that the powerful legacy of anti-racist struggle in the US—civil rights marches, affirmative action, Black Lives Matter, etc.—has had some impact on America’s students, compared to their British peers who don’t have a similar legacy. The American students Warikoo studied care very passionately about not being racist. They have a greater understanding of systemic inequality. But there lingers a self-absorbed individualism, a ‘what’s in it for me?’ attitude, which sees many white students embracing diversity for the benefits it brings to them personally, rather than the justice it seeks to effect in society. It would be interesting to see a comparable study conducted at less ‘elite’ universities, and whether students with a less privileged background, and more diverse peer group, would feel differently.

  Warikoo offers some parting suggestions for tackling the issues she identifies. If meritocracy is supposed to be an admirable goal—as many in our universities, and society, generally believe—then universities (especially elite ones) ought to do a better job of defining what the goals of meritocracy and merit-based approaches are. What Warikoo means by that, is that universities ought to more clearly acknowledge the important civic role of universities in enhancing opportunities, inclusion, equity and democracy in our society.

  Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, universities need to do a better job of framing affirmative action and race on campus. They need, in other words, to inculcate in students more of a power analysis frame—a deeper understanding of the role race plays in our society, of the histories of exclusion that we all too often gloss over or awkwardly ignore, of the ongoing differences in status and resources in our society.

  Finally, she reminds us to remain humble and acknowledge that meritocracy is probably never fully achievable. We will never be able to overcome all the inequalities and disadvantages in our society, so let’s not uncritically (and arrogantly) assume that we ever have the full answer, or that our methods, however laudable, don’t always exclude someone. To this end she offers an intriguing idea: allow admission to university by lottery, as opposed to the fraught and imperfect methods we currently employ which all too quickly (and often incorrectly, or incompletely) claim to reward merit and transcend bias. If admission were based on lottery, it would more truly underscore the element of ‘luck of the draw’, which defines every successful student’s experience to some degree or another. She’s not entirely serious about this proposal (she claims), but it offers an intriguing prospect. At the very least, it reminds us that we still have a long way to go in developing a post-secondary system and society that is truly fair, equitable, and meritocratic.

  THE DIVERSITY BARGAIN: AND OTHER DILEMMAS OF RACE, ADMISSIONS, AND MERITOCRACY AT ELITE UNIVERSITIES
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  Hans Rollmann is a writer and editor based in Eastern Canada. He's a columnist, writer and opinions editor with the online news magazine TheIndependent.ca. His work has appeared in a range of other publications both print and online, from Briarpatch Magazine to Feral Feminisms. In addition to a background in radio-broadcasting, union organizing and archaeology, he's currently completing a PhD in Gender, Feminist & Women's Studies in Toronto. He can be reached by email at hansnf@gmail.com or @hansnf on Twitter.

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