National Minorities in Serbian Academia

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.

• 1.Introduction: Intersectionality As A Lived Experience.- 2. Education As An Institution And As A Mechanism In The Lives Of Eastern European National Minority Women.- 3. Limited Options – National Minority Education In Serbia.- 4. Lost In Translation: The Language Barrier’s Effect On National Minority High School Graduates.- 5. The Language Barrier As The Ethnic ‘Glass Ceiling’: Ethnic Micro-Universes Within Serbian Universities.- 6. The Costs Of Academic Career For An National Minority Woman.- 7. Conclusions.

“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)“Lendák-Kabók’s study is very important, meticulously researched and analyzed with a  competent familiarity with relevant theoretical texts, while supported by an impressive bibliography. This book is a major contribution to research on gender and ethnic spaces in higher education, not only in Serbia. Its results can be easily applied to other similar multiethnic contexts in Central and Eastern Europe, but also beyond.” (Agatha Schwartz, Hungarian Studies Review, Vol. 50 (1-2), November, 2023)