Social Sciences

My research agenda lies at the intersection of anthropology of education, feminist scholarship, and critical studies of citizenship in contemporary India. Employing ethnographic and multi-sited research methodologies I investigate how educational spaces—ranging from state-led school programmes to higher education institutions—function as key sites for the production of citizenship, social identities, and forms of belonging. My projects include an ethnographic study of the Student Police Cadet programme in government schools in Kerala, focusing on youth citizenship and school–community relations, and an ongoing multi-sited ethnography of Muslim women’s experiences in higher education. I am also the Founding Editor of Sociological and Anthropological Studies of Education in India (SASEI), through which I seek to advance interdisciplinary scholarship in this field.

Peer-reviewed Articles 

• Chacko, M.A. (2026). The Hijab and the Uniform: A Situated Examination of Religious Accommodation. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 57(2), e70075.
• Khoja-Moolji, S., & Chacko, M. A. (2024). Policy dissidents: Understanding girl activism as creating “Tactical Crevices”. Policy and Society, 43(1), 98-110. 
• Chacko, M.A. (2020). English education as 'readymade leadership': Re-inscribing distinction through the Student Police Cadet project in Kerala, India.  South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 43(4), 775-792. 
• Ratnam, M., Bagchi, S., & Chacko, M.A. (2020). Protesting in Ahmedabad: Between Resistance and Restrictions. Political and Legal Anthropology Review (as part of essay series on the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019). https://polarjournal.org/2020/09/07/protesting-in-ahmedabad-between-resistance-and-restrictions/
• Naraian, S. Chacko, M.A., Feldman, C., & Schwitzman-Gerst, T. (2020). Emergent concepts of inclusion in the context of committed school leadership. Education and Urban Society, 52(8), 1238-1263.
• Chacko, M.A. (2019) Freedoms in the khaki: gendering a ‘gender-neutral’ uniform, Gender and Education, 33(1), 86-102. 
• Chacko, M.A. (2010). "Bend It like Beckham": Dribbling the Self through a Cross-Cultural Space. Multicultural Perspectives, 12(2), 81-86.

Book Chapters 

• Chacko, M.A. (2023). Mediated Childhoods: Newspapers and the Modern Malayali Child. In A. Dar and D. Kannan (Eds.). Childhood and Youth in India: Engagements with Modernity (pp.77-99). Palgrave Macmillan: Switzerland.  
• Lesko, N., Chacko, M.A. & Khoja-Moolji, S. (2023). The Promises of Empowered Girls. In J. Wyn & H. Cahill (Eds.), Handbook of Children and Youth Studies (2nd ed). Springer.
• Lesko, N., Chacko, M.A. & Khoja-Moolji, S. (2015). The Promises of Empowered Girls. In J. Wyn & H. Cahill (Eds.), Handbook of Children and Youth Studies . Springer.
• Chacko, M.A. (2015). Schooling as Counter-Socialization: Krishna Kumar’s Contributions to Curriculum. In William Pinar (Ed.), Curriculum Studies in India: Intellectual Histories, Present Circumstances. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Khoja-Moolji, S. & Chacko, M.A. (2011)."Post-colonialism, Impact on Women". The Multimedia Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World. Sage Publications.

Reviews

• Chacko. M.A. (2020). South Asian Governmentalities: Michel Foucault and the Question of Postcolonial Orderings. Contemporary South Asia, 28(4), 533-534.  
• Chacko, M.A. (2016). Politics of Education in Colonial India by Krishna Kumar. Pacific Affairs, Volume 89, No. 4. The University of British Columbia.
• Chacko, M.A., & Ross, E.W. (2011). Re-visioning Global Education. Review of Kirkwood-Tucker, Toni Fuss (Ed.). (2009). Visions in Global Education: The Globalization of Curriculum and Pedagogy in Teacher Education and Schools: Perspectives from Canada, Russia, and the United States. Theory and Research in Social Education, 39(1), 148-157.

UNDERGRADUATE (Ahmedabad University)

• Schooling and Society 
• Interrogating Disability in Culture and Education
• Introduction to Research Methodology
• Gender and Citizenship 
• Family, Community, Nation 

GRADUATE (Teachers College, Columbia University)

• Curriculum Theory and History
• Designing Curriculum and Instruction
• Immigration and Curriculum

• 2026               Ahmedabad University Chairman's Award for Excellence in Teaching
• 2023               Association for Asian Studies’ Cultivating the Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) Research Grant
• 2019- 2020    Spencer Conference Grant, Spencer Foundation, U.S.A. 
• 2017              Provost Doctoral Dissertation Grant, Teachers College, Columbia University 
• 2016              Taraknath Foundation Award, South Asia Institute, Columbia University
• 2016              Provost’s Grant for Professional Development, Teachers College, Columbia University
• 2016              Asia on Its Own Terms: Towards New Terminology and Narratives for Research in Asian Studies Doctoral Summer Scholarship, Tel Aviv University, Israel
• 2014-2015     AC4 Graduate Fellowship, Earth Institute, Columbia University
• 2013-2014     Dean’s Doctoral Research Fellowship, Teachers College, Columbia University 
• 2004-2005     Judy and Morris Fish Graduate Scholarship in Education, Concordia University

• Comparative Education Society of India (CESI)
• Comparative and International Education Society (CIES)
• Indian Sociological Society 
• Indian Association for Women's Studies