National Minorities in Serbian Academia

Beschreibung

“Karolina Lendák-Kabók provides a chilling look at the obstacles facing women from the largest ethnic minorities in Serbia as they make their way in the academy. Adopting an intersectional framework, combined with quantitative and qualitative data, she shows how gender, ethnicity, and linguistic community interact in keeping minority women from rising to the top in higher education. A must-read for anyone interested in the problem of the ‘glass ceiling’ from an Eastern European perspective.”

—Kathy Davis, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

"Lendák-Kabók’s fascinating study of the multi-ethnic northern Serbian province of Vojvodina provides all-new insights into ethnic language schooling systems, national minorities in the Serbian higher education system, and unique gender challenges faced by Hungarian, Slovak, and Romanian women academics. By situating her in-depth research in the larger context of Central and Eastern Europe and the European Union, Lendák-Kabók challenges some of our prior notions of the “language barriers” faced by national linguistic minorities in pursuing higher education and academic careers.”

—Wayne E. Wright, Purdue University, USA

This book offers an intersectional analysis of secondary and tertiary educational pathways of ethnic Hungarians, Romanians and Slovaks in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Serbia. After a detailed overview of the legal and institutional context of national minority education in Serbia, the book presents qualitative and quantitative research results to illuminate the often invisible linguistic and cultural barriers that national minority high school graduates, university students and faculty may encounter. The author also focuses on the position of national minority women in Serbian higher education and academia, shedding light on the very gendered nature of the ‘glass ceiling’ that often holds members of national minority communities back from career building.This book will be of interest to policymakers seeking nuanced interpretations of multifocal inequalities, as well as academics in fields such as gender studies, migration studies, minority languages and communities, and the sociology of education.

Karolina Lendák-Kabók is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, Serbia. Her research focuses on the position of ethnic minority women in post-transition Eastern European societies, their career possibilities, and the potential societal barriers they struggle with, in particular in the academic setting.

This book offers an intersectional analysis of secondary and tertiary educational pathways of ethnic Hungarians, Romanians and Slovaks in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Serbia. After a detailed overview of the legal and institutional context of national minority education in Serbia, the book presents qualitative and quantitative research results to illuminate the often invisible linguistic and cultural barriers that national minority high school graduates, university students and faculty may encounter. The author also focuses on the position of national minority women in Serbian higher education and academia, shedding light on the very gendered nature of the ‘glass ceiling’ that often holds members of national minority communities back from career building. This book will be of interest to policymakers seeking nuanced interpretations of multifocal inequalities, as well as academics in fields such as gender studies, migration studies, minority languages and communities, and the sociology of education.

Autor*in

Karolina Lendák-Kabók

Themen in »National Minorities in Serbian Academia«

inequality intersectionality minority languages Hungarian Slovak Romanian Serbian Eastern European culture academia language barrier

Stimmen zu »National Minorities in Serbian Academia«

“I admire her skills in combining qualitative and quantitative methods to effectively communicate the problems that underrepresented students and academics face. The tables provided helped to visualize and summarise the data. Lendák-Kabók reached all the set goals, presenting her data very responsively and comprehensively. Thus, the text is not solely for those in academia; I hope it reaches local policymakers so the diverse university community becomes more inclusive, accessible, and open for women’s leadership.” (Rimantė Jaugaitė, JEMIE - Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe, Vol. 24 (1), 2025)

“In her new book, Karolina Lendák-Kabók explores the complex intersection of language, nationality and gender at the example of female academics from three linguistic minority groups (Hungarian, Slovak and Romanian) in the Vojvodina province of Serbia. The author presents carefully researched data to support her arguments regarding the marginalization of female academics in a "nationalizing" state (Brubaker) that is today's Serbia in which despite officially established policies of minority rights, discrimination manifests at various levels of the educational system and academia. She further concludes that academics from minority groups in Serbia struggle to juggle a career and split identity between their non-EU country of origin (Serbia) and an EU-member kin-state (Hungary, Slovakia and Romania), which often results in brain drain to the latter. Lendák-Kabók situates the relevance of her findings in the context of gender and minority research in Central and Eastern European highereducation systems. I see the importance of this brilliant study beyond this geographic region as the issues pinpointed by the author resonate more broadly and readers from many countries are likely to find its content compelling and thought-provoking.” (Agatha Schwartz, University of Ottawa, Canada)

“Karolina Lendák-Kabók provides a chilling look at the obstacles facing women from the largest ethnic minorities in Serbia as they make their way in the academy. Adopting an intersectional framework, combined with quantitative and qualitative data, she shows how gender, ethnicity, and linguistic community interact in keeping minority women from rising to the top in higher education. A must-read for anyone interested in the problem of the ‘glass ceiling’ from an Eastern European perspective.” (Kathy Davis, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

“Lendák-Kabók’s fascinating study of the multi-ethnic northern Serbian province of Vojvodina provides all-new insights into ethnic language schooling systems, national minorities in the Serbian higher education system, and unique gender challenges faced by Hungarian, Slovak, and Romanian women academics. By situating her in-depth research in the larger context of Central and Eastern Europe and the European Union, Lendák-Kabók challenges some of our prior notions of the “language barriers” faced by national linguistic minorities in pursuing higher education and academic careers.” (Wayne E. Wright, Purdue University, USA)

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