Ethnic minority women in the Serbian academic community

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss the position of ethnic minority women (Hungarian, Slovak, and Romanian) in relation to their career-building in the Serbian higher education system and reaching decision-making positions (such as rector, vice-rector, dean, head of department, etc.). The author defines two hypotheses: (1) that there are invisible biases (gender-based, ethnicity-based, and segregation-related) in the sciences that put ethnic minority women in a challenging position when attempting to build a career in academia, and (2) that these women encounter a glass ceiling when trying to reach more senior positions. The analysis is based on 16 semi-structured interviews conducted with Hungarian, Slovak, and Romanian female teaching staff employed at two Serbian universities. Intersectionality as a theoretical framework and method was used in the analysis of interviews, along with narrative analysis. Analysis of the interviews showed that ethnic minority women adopt specific strategies when discussing and explaining their difficulties and opportunities in the higher education system of Serbia. The intersectional analysis indicates that ethnic minority women struggle with invisible biases at the individual level, and, due to the horizontal segregation in sciences, have to overcome a situation of double jeopardy in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) studies. The findings suggest that women from ethnic minorities face a glass ceiling in relation to obtaining decision-making positions. Namely, such positions are usually only guaranteed to them within their own ethnic enclaves at departments with majority female staff. However, positions higher than these are rarely attainable.