Maxine Baca Zinn (born June 11, 1942),[1] née Baca, is an American sociologist known for her work on gender, race, and ethnicity and particularly, the experience of women of color at the intersection of race, class, and gender.
She grew up in Santa Fe where she met and married her high school sweetheart, Alan Zinn.
[4] After completing her undergraduate work in 1966, Baca Zinn worked for two years as a fourth grade Catholic school teacher in the Los Angeles area while her husband completed his studies.
[1] In 1968 the young family returned to New Mexico where Maxine enrolled in a Sociology Masters program and began working as a graduate teaching assistant providing instruction in the New Careers Program (1969–1971) and Sociology (1970–1971) until she graduated and moved on to the University of Oregon.
[5] In 1975, she moved to Flint, Michigan where she began a teaching appointment at the University of Michigan instructing courses in sociology and Chicano Studies (1975–1978) and became assistant professor, then professor of sociology until 1990 when she moved to Michigan State University as professor and Senior Research Associate at the Julian Samora Research Institute.