Biography

Denise Esteves holds a PhD in Human Rights in Contemporary Societies with a thesis entitled "Reading Beyond the Written Lines of Human Rights: Collaborative Learning Communities and Learning Schools as Drivers for Educational Change". She also holds a bachelor degree in Anthropology from the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra and a master degree in Sociology from the Faculty of Economics of the same university. Currently, Denise Esteves is a member of the Observatory for Education Policies and Professional Development at the Centre of Social Studies, UC. In the last years, she took part in national and international research projects on education and student learning outcomes, education policies, higher education and International Assessment of Adult Competencies (Portugal) (PIACC- OECD). Her scientific interest is focused on the collaborative capacity of teachers, parents, students and community members to support transformation in schools. Overall, her scientific issue is to study which processes are bound to create emancipatory educational practices and to foster innovative ways of producing new knowledge in Portuguese schools. Denise has a particular interest in findings ways to connect research, policy and practice to support capacity building. Her work mainly focuses on how schools, districts and national systems create capacity for and lead learning and improvement, with a particular emphasis on developing learning communities. At the school system level, she is currently working on practical ways of transforming schools into learning organizations.