Hennie Kesak

Since autumn 2019, I have been working as a lecturer in education at the Department of Education. However, a year earlier, I had already started working 20% alongside a managerial role within the education administration in a medium-sized municipality. As part of my managerial role, I was responsible for the operations, staff and budget of a multilingualism unit tasked with identifying newly arrived immigrants, organising mother-tongue teaching and providing study guidance in the mother tongue.

I obtained my teaching qualification in 1982 in the Netherlands and worked there for two years at a primary school before moving to Sweden in 1984. Here, I resumed my teaching career in 1989 after working for a few years as a purchasing assistant/secretary at a medium-sized company with numerous international contacts.

The school’s compensatory role has always interested me, as schools can and should make a difference for pupils and students who face slightly greater challenges in their schooling. This compensatory role, combined with my interest in people from different cultural backgrounds, languages and experiences, sparked my interest in leadership and organisation. Newly arrived students and learning, especially from an organisational perspective, have become of particular interest to me in recent years.

My interest in organisation and leadership has led to a Master’s degree in Intercultural Education with a specialisation in intercultural leadership, as well as a Master’s degree in Education with a specialisation in educational leadership.

Teaching

I work at the Department of Education as a lecturer, with a strong focus on leadership, learning and school development. My teaching and research straddle the boundary between theory and practice, with a particular interest in how leadership can shape and contribute to sustainable and inclusive educational environments.

I am the course coordinator for the course Intercultural Leadership, which focuses on strengthening students’ ability to lead in a global and multicultural labour market. The course provides both theoretical and practical tools for navigating complex and changing organisations, a skill that is in demand within both the education sector and other parts of society.

In our teaching, we work on analysing leadership in various cultural and organisational contexts, as well as understanding how diversity, equality and inclusion affect the working environment and operational outcomes. A key element is developing ethically conscious strategies for intercultural leadership.

In addition to this, I am involved in the headteacher programme and the recruitment training for prospective headteachers. In these contexts, I work on issues relating to educational leadership, organisational development and the school’s mission in a changing society.

I am also involved in two different ELR projects (Education, Learning, Research), where I collaborate with schools and other stakeholders to strengthen the link between research and practice. The work aims to contribute to long-term knowledge development and improved quality in the education system.

Research

My research interests centre on interculturalism, multilingualism and leadership in a multifaceted and changing society. I hold a master’s degree in Intercultural Education, during which I focused on how leadership is shaped and exercised in environments characterised by cultural and linguistic diversity.

In my more recent research (within the master’s programme in Education with a specialisation in Educational Leadership), I have studied how work with newly arrived pupils is influenced by organisational conditions, collaboration between different professional groups, and relationships between teachers, pupils and guardians. I am particularly interested in how these factors can both create barriers and open opportunities in everyday school life. A central focus of my research is how identities are shaped in educational practices and how ‘us and them’ perceptions can arise, but also be challenged and reshaped, in encounters between different actors within the school. I highlight how such processes are linked to school culture, attitudes, leadership and competence.

Overall, questions of intercultural leadership, democracy and internationalisation guide my work. In my role as a lecturer, I strive to integrate these perspectives into teaching and collaboration, with the aim of contributing to more inclusive and knowledge-based educational environments.