Stina Sundberg was a public educator, a co-founder of Kvinnofolkhögskolan (the women’s college), a spokesperson for the Feministiskt initiativ (Feminist initiative) political party, and also active within the LGBTQ movement.

Stina Sundberg was born in Kalix municipality in 1954. Her parents were Ivar Sundberg, a tracklayer, and his wife Betty, a cleaner, office worker, and later on bank-worker. The family subsequently moved to Luleå where Stina Sundberg gained her school-leaving certificate. During and after her schoolyears she was employed in a variety of odd jobs, primarily as a cashier or a bartender.

Stina Sundberg attended the Strömma lanthushållsskola (rural domestic sciences school) in Sätila, Västergötland. During the period of 1975–1989 she studied at Gothenburg and at Umeå universities as well as Örebro högskola (college). Stina Sundberg and her elder sister Agneta were the first members of their family to undertake higher education. During the 1970s Stina Sundberg was also actively involved in Kvinnocentrum (the women’s centre) at Kvinnohuset (the women’s house) in Gothenburg and participated in setting up a women’s college. Stina Sundberg taught on foundational courses for women held at Kvinnohuset during the 1970s and 1980s, which were administered by Göteborgs folkhögskola (college) and Nordiska folkhögskolan (college) in Kungälv. In 1983 and in 2007 Stina Sundberg also worked as a sound technician for the Tjejfilm company production of two shorts, one entitled Eva och Maria and the other Bokbussen kommer. In 1985 Stina Sundberg gained qualifications as a special subject teacher in psychology, the social sciences and sociology at Göteborgs Lärarhögskola (teaching college). Kvinnofolkhögskolan opened that same year in Gothenburg and for many years Stina Sundberg served as the college’s principal and as a teacher. Her teaching duties primarily focused on the social sciences and economics. She was actively involved in developing the school’s legal section and subsequently became responsible for its organisation, projects, long-term planning, policy issues, working environment, accounts, IT developments and more. From 1986 onwards she lived with and later married Kerri Corley.

Stina Sundberg believed strongly in public education as a means of supporting social democracy. She set up the Göteborgs folkhögskolors intresseorganisation (GIO) (Gothenburg colleges’ civil organisation), for which she served as chair. She was on the board of the Västra Götalands Bildningsförbund (education association), she belonged to the steering group of Västra Götalands arbete för utsatta invandrade flickor (agency for vulnerable immigrant girls), she contributed to a book and an exhibition on women at Residenset in Gothenburg, and she served as chair at a number of meetings held by various women’s groups. She left her post at Kvinnofolkhögskolan in 2005 and took on the role of head of staff at Rörelsefolkhögskolornas intresseorganisation (RIO; the social movement colleges’ civil organisation). In 2009 Stina Sundberg was appointed strategic equalities co-ordinator for the Västra Götaland region, thereby establishing contacts and networks across the region’s agencies. For example, she was an important source of support for a centre of knowledge for gender equality in care. Within the cultural sphere she contributed to the development of action plans for human rights and the Västra Götaland region cultural plan.

From 2005 onwards Stina Sundberg was a committee member of the newly-established political party Feministiskt initiativ and during the 2007–2011 period she served as the party’s spokesperson. In 2010 she became chair of the Konstepidemin association board in Gothenburg.

Throughout her life Stina Sundberg was active within the feminist and the LGBTQ movements. She helped to set up Lesbisk Front in 1975 and contributed to the anthology called Den moderna homofobin, published in 2011, in which she set out the issues of how people perceived one another.

Stina Sundberg died in Gothenburg in 2011. She is buried at Västra kyrkogården (the Western Cemetery) in that city.