- Country of residence/work
- Belgium
- Geographical scope
- European Union
- Level of education focus
- Early childhood education and care (ECEC)
- Thematic areas covered
- Monitoring and quality assurance
- Quality and inclusive education for all
- Teachers and trainers
- Methodological expertise
- Foresights
- Qualitative methods
- Stakeholder consultations
- Organisation
- VBJK, Centre for Innovation in the Early Years
Contact
Hester works as a senior researcher at VBJK, Centre for Innovation in the Early Years (Belgium). Her areas of expertise are on quality in ECEC in general. Examples are professionalization of ECEC staff, valuing diverse staff, inclusive leadership in ECEC, supporting professionals in their daily practice with divers and multilingual families, integrated working between different sectors, … She is involved in a broad range of projects, both nationally as well as internationally. All her projects have one thing in common: the focus on the pedagogical and social function of ECEC aiming for quality improvement in ECEC, with a positive impact on all children, parents and society. Until 2012 she worked at Ghent University and wrote a PhD on Distributed leadership and organizational outcomes in secondary schools. According to Gumus, et al. in Educational Management Administration & Leadership (2016) her research is in the top 10 of the most published scholars on leadership models in educational research.