Sarada Balagopalan

Sarada Balagopalan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University. Her work critically examines postcolonial childhoods, focusing on marginalization, labor, and education in the Global South. She is also a Wolf Humanities Center Regional Fellow (2019–2020) and contributes to editorial leadership as an Associate Editor for The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies.

• Research explores India's 'demographic dividend' and urban female youth transitions
• Author of Inhabiting 'Childhood' (2014), a foundational text on postcolonial childhoods
• Editorial board member for Childhood: A Journal of Global Child Research

Research Focus

Balagopalan's scholarship challenges hegemonic assumptions about childhood in postcolonial contexts, particularly through ethnographic studies of girls' schooling-to-skilling trajectories. Her work bridges critical childhood theories with empirical analyses of labor and kinship structures.

Scientific Awards

• Wolf Humanities Center Regional Fellow (2019–2020) for kinship studies in retail labor