Transformative sustainability education is emerging in Spain but implementation is constrained by decades of economised education policy, according to the PLOS Sustainability and Transformation article (Ó Riada et al., 2026) PLOS Sustainability and Transformation. Evidano is an AI-powered qualitative data analysis platform that helps researchers analyze interviews, open-ended surveys, and documents. This post interprets the PLOS study through the lens of AI-enabled qualitative research and shows concrete ways teams can extract policy timelines, coded discourses, and actionable barriers to adoption using AI tools, according to the study findings in Ó Riada et al. (2026) PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
Key Takeaways
Spain’s education reform process produced a measurable discursive opening for transformative sustainability education in the 2020 LOMLOE law, but entrenched neoliberal governance limits implementation, according to Ó Riada et al. (2026) in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
- Ó Riada et al. (2026) analysed national laws and seven in-depth interviews conducted between February and September 2025 and identify three historical periods: 1975–1990, 1990–2018, and 2019–present PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
- Ó Riada et al. (2026) report that the LOMLOE (introduced 2020 and rolled out 2021–2024) gives sustainability a central signifier and prescribes transversal, experiential learning, yet teachers report missing training and resources as of interviews in 2025 PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
- Ó Riada et al. (2026) warn that sustainability risks becoming a ‘floating signifier’ co-opted by market narratives unless governance conditions change, a conclusion illustrated in the paper’s analysis published on August 18, 2026 PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
What happened: three discursive periods in Spain and how they were measured
Spain’s education discourse shifted across three periods and Ó Riada et al. (2026) measured these shifts through document analysis of education laws and seven interviews between February and September 2025, as reported in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
The democratic transition period (1975–1990) foregrounded emancipatory and relational pedagogies, according to Ó Riada et al. (2026) in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
The neoliberal consensus period (1990–2018) saw OECD-driven, test-oriented governance and PISA-driven metrics become central, according to Ó Riada et al. (2026) in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
The opening since 2019 culminated in the 2020 LOMLOE law that integrates sustainability as a transversal competence, but Ó Riada et al. (2026) report that implementation is constrained by teacher workload, lack of training, and continuing market logics, as documented in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
Two direct quotations illustrate the tension: the LOMLOE preamble states “schools must become a place of stewardship and care for our environment, ” quoted in Ó Riada et al. (2026) from the Spanish Ministry of Education (LOMLOE preamble) PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
A practitioner quoted in Ó Riada et al. (2026) said, “the whole system has been squeezed by competitiveness, by market orientation […] especially with the cuts that came after the crisis of 2008, ” as documented in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
Snapshot table: dated metrics and implications
| Date | Metric | Value / Source | Implication |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1975–1990 | Discursive orientation | Emancipatory, pedagogical renewal (Ó Riada et al., 2026) | Opened space for relational, experiential pedagogy according to PLOS analysis |
| 1990–2018 | Dominant framing | Neoliberal, OECD/PISA-driven (Ó Riada et al., 2026) | Standardisation and test metrics narrowed policy options according to PLOS analysis |
| 2019–present | Policy change | LOMLOE introduced 2020, rolled out 2021–2024 (Ó Riada et al., 2026) | Sustainability added as transversal competence but implementation gaps remain |
| Feb–Sep 2025 | Qualitative data | 7 in-depth interviews (Ó Riada et al., 2026) | Triangulation showed teacher training and workload barriers documented in PLOS |
| Aug 18, 2026 | Publication | Peer-reviewed article published in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation (Ó Riada et al., 2026) | Provides a dated, citable synthesis for policy and research discussions |
Implications for qualitative researchers and policy teams
Answer: Qualitative researchers need AI-enabled methods to map discursive frames, track signifiers like ‘sustainability’, and link texts to interview evidence rapidly, according to Ó Riada et al. (2026) in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
Qualitative teams should prioritize coding for: signifiers (for example, ‘quality’, ‘sustainability’), temporal markers (1975–1990, 1990–2018, 2019–present), and actor networks (OECD, ministries, Teachers for Future) as recommended by Ó Riada et al. (2026) in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
For policymakers, Ó Riada et al. (2026) in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation recommend coupling curricular language with resources: teacher training, reduced administrative burden, and accountability models that reward relational learning rather than only test scores PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
How Evidano helps: map discourses, quantify openings, and surface barriers
Problem: Laws say sustainability but teachers lack time and training
Answer: Evidence in Ó Riada et al. (2026) shows LOMLOE includes sustainability language but teachers reported missing training and high workloads in interviews in 2025, as documented in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
How Evidano helps: Evidano is an AI-powered qualitative data analysis platform that helps researchers analyze interviews, open-ended surveys, and documents, and it can identify which law articles and which interview excerpts mention training, timing, and workload, as demonstrated in comparable policy analyses.
Problem: ‘Sustainability’ is a floating signifier
Answer: Ó Riada et al. (2026) argue sustainability’s meaning is contested and can be co-opted by market narratives, as shown in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
How Evidano helps: Evidano’s thematic, frequency, and co-occurrence analyses reveal how often and in what semantic neighbourhoods ‘sustainability’ appears across laws, curricula, and stakeholder interviews, and a link to Evidano features explains these capabilities.
Problem: implementation metrics remain quantitative while pedagogy requires qualitative assessment
Answer: Ó Riada et al. (2026) show LOMLOE shifts to competence-based, qualitative assessment yet external accountability pressures persist, as described in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
How Evidano helps: Evidano automates coding of competence-based assessment texts, supports cross-segment analysis (teachers, regions, law articles), and generates visualizations that make qualitative evaluation findings defensible to officials.
FAQ: transformative sustainability education
What is transformative sustainability education and how does it differ from human-capital approaches?
Answer: Transformative sustainability education (TSE) prioritizes relational, experiential, and critical learning aimed at social-ecological change, unlike human-capital approaches that frame education primarily as investment for economic productivity, according to Ó Riada et al. (2026) in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
Supporting detail: Ó Riada et al. (2026) trace this contrast across law preambles and curricular shifts across 1975–2024 in Spain, as described in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
Did the LOMLOE law of 2020 officially include sustainability?
Answer: Yes, the LOMLOE preamble and Article 121 include sustainability as a transversal competence and describe schools as ‘motors of social and community transformation’, as quoted in Ó Riada et al. (2026) in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
Supporting detail: Ó Riada et al. (2026) note that LOMLOE was introduced in 2020 and rolled out between 2021 and 2024, and that the law legitimizes transdisciplinary and experiential pedagogies while leaving implementation challenges, as reported in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
How can AI speed up qualitative research on education policy like the Ó Riada et al. study?
Answer: AI can accelerate coding, identify discourse shifts over time, and link quotes to law articles and interview metadata within hours instead of weeks, enabling rapid triangulation as needed in Ó Riada et al. (2026) in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
Supporting detail: The Ó Riada et al. study used NVivo for iterative coding, and AI tools can replicate and scale that workflow to larger corpora and multiple languages while preserving traceability, as noted by methods described in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation (Ó Riada et al., 2026) PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
Conclusion & Next Steps
The PLOS study by Ó Riada et al. (2026) shows that Spain’s LOMLOE created a discursive opening for transformative sustainability education but that teacher training, bureaucratic burden, and persistent neoliberal governance remain implementation barriers, as reported in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
AI-enabled qualitative methods make these barriers and openings measurable and defensible to policymakers, according to the methods and findings in Ó Riada et al. (2026) in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.
If your team needs to reproduce the Ó Riada et al. coding approach at scale or to track how ‘sustainability’ is articulated across laws and stakeholder interviews, AI tools can automate thematic coding, cross-segment analysis, and produce shareable evidence, as demonstrated by comparable workflows described in the PLOS study (Ó Riada et al., 2026).
Next step: Try Evidano for free to upload policy documents, transcripts, and curricula and generate thematic, frequency, and cross-segment analyses that map discursive openings and implementation barriers.
Topics
- transformative sustainability education
- LOMLOE Spain education policy
- AI qualitative analysis
- education discourse analysis
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