Discursive Openings: Transformative Sustainability Education

Transformative sustainability education is the idea that schooling should develop learners' agency, futures literacy, and relational knowledge for ecological and social transformation. According to the PLOS Sustainability and Transformation paper published on August 18, 2026, Spain’s recent education law (LOMLOE, 2020) creates discursive openings for that approach while remaining constrained by decades of human-capital-oriented policy. The analysis below explains what changed in Spain (1975 to present), which concrete barriers researchers found, and how AI-enabled qualitative research can accelerate credible, policy-relevant evaluation of reforms such as LOMLOE.

Key Takeaways

The PLOS Sustainability and Transformation study (PLOS Sustainability and Transformation) shows that Spain’s LOMLOE (2020) introduces sustainability as a central signifier while implementation remains constrained by entrenched neoliberal governance.

Ó Riada et al. (2026) analysed national education laws from 1975 to the present and triangulated document analysis with seven in-depth interviews conducted between February and September 2025.
The paper identifies three discursive periods: democratic transition (1975–1990), neoliberal consolidation (1990–2018), and openings for transformative sustainability education (2019–present), with LOMLOE introduced in 2020 and rolled out from 2021 to 2024.
Ó Riada et al. (2026) warn that “sustainability has become a central signifier” but that the term is contested and risks co-optation into market-oriented agendas.
The LOMLOE preamble frames schools as places of care: “schools must become a place of stewardship and care for our environment” (Spanish Ministry of Education, LOMLOE preamble, 2020).

What happened and how the study was measured

Answer: The authors traced discursive shifts in Spanish education policy by combining historical document analysis with interviews to identify openings for transformative sustainability education.

According to Ó Riada et al. (2026), the team analysed national education laws and preambles from 1975 onward and reviewed related regional and international documents to map how language about education changed over time.

According to Ó Riada et al. (2026), the study conducted seven semi-structured interviews between February and September 2025 to triangulate findings and to surface the strategies used by environmental movements and pedagogical renewal actors.

According to Ó Riada et al. (2026), the authors identify three periods: emancipatory aspirations (1975–1990), neoliberal consolidation shaped by OECD discourse (1990–2018), and the emergence of discursive openings for transformative sustainability education beginning in 2019.

Findings snapshot

Date / Period	Metric or Evidence	Value / Count	Implication
1975–1990	Policy orientation	Emancipatory, pedagogical renewal	Documented shift toward relational, community-based pedagogy (Ó Riada et al., 2026)
1990–2018	Policy orientation	Neoliberal, OECD-aligned	Instrumental focus on PISA and measurable outcomes (Ó Riada et al., 2026)
2019–present	Legislative change	LOMLOE introduced 2020, rollout 2021–2024	Sustainability made central signifier but implementation constrained (Ó Riada et al., 2026)
February–September 2025	Interviews	7 in-depth interviews	Triangulation of document analysis with practitioner perspectives (Ó Riada et al., 2026)
August 18, 2026	Publication	PLOS Sustainability and Transformation article	Peer-reviewed evidence base for discursive analysis (Ó Riada et al., 2026)

Implications for qualitative researchers and policy teams

Answer: Qualitative researchers should map discursive openings and implementation barriers with mixed document and interview evidence, because Ó Riada et al. (2026) show language shifts do not guarantee practice change.

Ó Riada et al. (2026) find that LOMLOE legitimises transdisciplinary, experiential and embodied pedagogies on paper but that teacher training, bureaucratic burdens, regional political resistance, and legacy neoliberal governance limit school-level application.

Ó Riada et al. (2026) note that only a minority of teachers had training in transdisciplinary methods and that the law’s promise to train all teachers on SDGs by 2025 had not been fulfilled within the term set, creating a measurable implementation gap.

For evaluators this means: combine corpus analysis of laws/curricula with interview coding and classroom-level case studies to connect policy language to practice; the Spanish case shows discourse change is necessary but not sufficient.

How Evidano helps

How can AI speed rigorous qualitative analysis of policy discourse?

Answer: Evidano automates thematic, frequency and cross-segment analyses so policy teams can turn documents and interviews into auditable, evidence-based narratives.

Evidano is an AI-powered qualitative data analysis platform that helps researchers analyze interviews, open-ended surveys, and documents.

Problem: Longitudinal policy corpora are hard to synthesise (Ó Riada et al. 2026 used decades of laws and multiple documents). Solution: Evidano ingests large document sets, extracts preamble and clause-level themes, and produces time-series topic maps to trace signifier shifts.

Problem: Interview triangulation is time consuming (the paper used seven interviews between Feb and Sep 2025). Solution: Evidano transcribes audio (see speech-to-text) with a custom dictionary for policy terms, redacts PII, and aligns quotes to source documents so analysts can validate at scale.

Problem: Implementation gaps require mixed evidence. Solution: Evidano’s cross-segment analysis links teacher-level survey responses to regional curricula and local pilot evaluations, enabling rapid identification of training shortfalls and bureaucratic bottlenecks.

Learn more about relevant capabilities on our features page.

FAQ: transformative sustainability education

What is transformative sustainability education and how is it defined in the Spanish case?

Answer: Transformative sustainability education prioritises agency, relational learning, and futures literacy rather than only measurable skills.

Ó Riada et al. (2026) define transformative sustainability education (TSE) as pedagogies that foster “experiential and embodied” learning and that enable learners to imagine and enact alternative futures, contrasting it with OECD-driven human-capital approaches.

Does LOMLOE (2020) implement transformative sustainability education in practice?

Answer: Not fully; LOMLOE institutionalises TSE language but practical implementation is uneven.

Ó Riada et al. (2026) report that LOMLOE’s preamble and curriculum frameworks include transdisciplinary and stewardship language, yet teacher training shortfalls, bureaucratic evaluation systems, and regional political resistance limit classroom uptake.

How can researchers measure whether a discursive opening becomes practice?

Answer: Combine document analysis, interview data, and classroom-level observations into linked datasets and track implementation indicators over time.

Ó Riada et al. (2026) used historical law analysis and seven interviews to map discursive change; AI-enabled platforms can scale that method by coding hundreds of documents, aligning interview themes, and quantifying implementation gaps.

Can AI misinterpret contested signifiers like 'sustainability'?

Answer: Yes, unless models are guided by contextual dictionaries and human validation.

Ó Riada et al. (2026) show that 'sustainability' is a floating signifier; Evidano mitigates misinterpretation with domain custom dictionaries, human-in-the-loop code refinement, and exportable audits of coded passages.

Conclusion & Next Steps

Answer: Spain’s LOMLOE opens discursive space for transformative sustainability education but does not guarantee implementation, and targeted qualitative evaluation is needed to close that gap.

Ó Riada et al. (2026) demonstrate that policy language changed after 2019 but practical constraints such as teacher training deficits, evaluation burdens, and regional politics persist.

If you are mapping policy-to-practice gaps for TSE, use AI-enabled qualitative analysis to combine law texts, interview transcripts, teacher surveys, and classroom evidence into auditable findings.

Try Evidano for free to ingest documents, transcribe interviews, and run thematic and cross-segment analyses to measure whether legislative openings translate into classroom change: Try Evidano for free.

Topics

transformative sustainability education
transformative education Spain
education policy discourse
AI qualitative analysis
LOMLOE implementation

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