Maxine Baca Zinn: 1942—: Sociologist

Baca Zinn got her first teaching job in 1975 at the University of Michigan at Flint. She was excited about this position because she was a part of both sociology and Chicano studies programs. In 1978 she completed her Ph.D. and continued working at Flint for the next fifteen years. This was primarily a teaching position, although Baca Zinn also continued her research on Hispanic families. She earned a reputation as an inspirational teacher and was recognized for this accomplishment with the Faculty Special Merit Award in 1975, the Faculty Achievement Award for Scholarly or Creative Achievement in 1982, and the Distinguished Faculty Award from the Michigan Association of Governing Boards in 1983. In addition to teaching, Baca Zinn published several articles derived from her dissertation and also worked on a large Chicano survey conducted at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Baca Zinn was able to combine her research interests and passion for teaching into a series of sociology textbooks. She believed that this was the best way to incorporate diversity into the sociological curriculum. Together with D. Stanley Eitzen, Baca Zinn has coauthored three textbooks: Social Problems, In Conflict and Order Understanding Society, and Diversity in Families, all of which have been published in multiple editions. As Baca Zinn was quoted in Liberation Sociology, "Textbooks need not be limited to the synthesis of dominant perspectives. Instead, texts have possibilities for constructing and transmitting liberatory knowledge."