Dr. Rebecca English Visits the School of Education

Dr. Rebecca English, a Senior Lecturer and researcher at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia, visited CUNY Hunter College last month to collaborate with Dr. Gina Riley, Associate Professor of Special Education. During the visit, Dr. English toured the Hunter College Campus Schools and met with Dean Julie Gorlewski of the School of Education to discuss how student voice and democratic practice intersect with teacher preparation.

The visit supports Drs. English and Riley’s forthcoming book, Democracy Reimagined: Transforming Education Through Democratic Schooling (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026, in review), which compares and contrasts how democracy and democratic schooling are enacted in Australia and the United States. Democratic schools serve an important role for families seeking learner-directed options. Additionally, many of these schools are chosen by families of neurodivergent learners, who often find more agency and support in self-directed environments.

Following this campus visit, Drs. English and Riley will synthesize field notes from New York with interviews and site observations in Australia. Their comparative analysis aims to identify and clarify where democratic ideals appear in school governance and classroom life, and how policy, accountability, and culture shape those practices on each continent. The authors expect the project to inform educators and policymakers considering student-voice-forward designs in within varied educational settings.