Carol Ferrara

Dr. Carol Ferrara is a sociocultural anthropologist. Drawing upon her diverse academic and professional expertise in anthropology, diversity, pluralism, religion, education, and business, Dr. Ferrara’s teaching encourages students to think critically about how marketing and business influence our societies, our cultures, and our understanding of the world around us. Her students are guided toward building more holistic, ethical, culturally adaptive, and socially and environmentally responsible marketing campaigns, businesses, and workplaces.

Dr. Ferrara’s research has focused on religion in secular societies, and most prominently, the ways that Muslims and Catholics navigate and negotiate faith, plurality, ethics, and national identity in secular France. Her debut book, Muslim and Catholic Experiences of French National Belonging: Rethinking boundaries, inequities, and faith in the Republic, was published with Bloomsbury Academic as part of the Islam in the West Series in 2024.

She has published multiple articles and book chapters about private schooling in France, and has recently completed new research on Boston’s K-12 public school lottery system. Her new project takes a comparative approach to understanding independent (non-state funded) religious education in France and the U.S.