Natasha Warikoo Jun 2026

In her latest book, Race at the Top: Asian Americans and Whites in Pursuit of the American Dream in Suburban Schools (2022), Warikoo examines competitive parenting. She finds that both white and Asian American affluent parents use similar strategies (tutoring, test prep, resume-building activities), but they deploy racial narratives differently.

is a distinguished sociologist and the Lenore Stern Professor in the Social Sciences at Tufts University. Her extensive body of research offers a profound exploration of how race, immigration, and inequality intersect within the educational systems of the United States and Britain. Formerly a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Warikoo’s work is characterized by its deep sociological inquiry into how "winners" of elite systems perceive fairness and merit. Key Research and Publications natasha warikoo

It was a transactional view of race: diversity was valuable, but only insofar as it served the interests of the already privileged. Meanwhile, Warikoo found that students were deeply resistant to class-based affirmative action, often clinging to the myth that they had succeeded solely through "hard work," ignoring the vast infrastructure of test prep, legacy status, and stability that buoyed them. In her latest book, Race at the Top: