Mary C. Waters

Mary C. Waters (born c. 1957) is an American sociologist. She is a professor at Harvard University.

Waters grew up in Brooklyn, New York and currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is married and has three children.

Waters earned her B.A. in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University in 1978. She went on to earn her first M.A. in Demography in 1981 and her second M.A. in1983 from the University of California at Berkeley, along with her PhD in Sociology in 1986. She has taught at Harvard University since 1986 and is the M.E. Zukerman Professor of Sociology.

Waters specializes in the study of immigration, identity formation and inter-group relations, with an emphasis on ethnic and racial identity among the children of immigrants.

She is noted for her concept of ethnic option, according to which the children and descendants of immigrants have the option of choosing whether or not to identify with the ethnicity of their ancestors. Waters notes, however, that there are four specific factors which influence that choice: “knowledge about ancestors, surname, looks, and the relative rankings of the groups.” The term first appeared in her book Ethnic Options, Choosing Identities in America.'

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