Colleges of Education and Opportunities for Improved Public Climate Literacy

• In Event: (Re)framing Environmental and Sustainability Education in a Divided World: Responses in K–12 School Districts and Higher Education in the USA

Proposal

Institutions of higher education are uniquely positioned to prepare students—and society—for the transformations required to address climate change. Universities can model carbon neutrality, embed sustainability principles across curricula, and generate research that informs public policy. Yet, despite these opportunities, higher education has not motivated the broad societal transformations necessary to reach Net Zero or to address the escalating “polycrisis” (Gardner et al., 2021). Colleges of education, in particular, play a pivotal role: they train teachers, conduct research on pedagogy, and shape the civic values of future educators. This paper evaluates the extent to which U.S. colleges of education are contributing to sustainability cultures on their campuses and to broader societal climate literacy.
The study focuses on the top 20 colleges of education at American Association of Universities (AAU) institutions, which collectively credential thousands of teachers annually. A survey instrument and systematic review of institutional documents (mission statements, climate action plans, STARS ratings, curricular offerings) were used to assess sustainability-related infrastructure, commitments, and practices. Data were collected in 2023 and again in 2025, allowing for analysis of changes following a new federal administration that shifted research priorities and funding structures.
Findings reveal a sobering picture. As of 2025, more than 56,000 students at AAU colleges of education have no access to sustainability-related coursework, while only 8 colleges offer dedicated programs. Even where SE coursework exists, it is limited: on average, one course is available for every 1,540 students. Colleges of education that do offer SE courses tend to be embedded in universities with stronger campus-wide sustainability infrastructures. At the institutional level, mission statements and climate action plans increasingly reflect political pressures: in Republican-led states, sustainability language has been removed from public documents, while in Democratic-led states, such language has been strengthened.
Sustainability cultures theory (Stephenson, 2018, 2023) helps explain these dynamics. Colleges of education are influenced by material assets (sustainability offices, green infrastructure), subjectivities (mission statements, values), and practices (curricular offerings, student activism). Exogenous factors—including federal funding shifts and state-level legislation—shape how these assets, subjectivities, and practices align or fracture. In states hostile to climate or DEI initiatives, sustainability cultures weaken; in supportive contexts, they deepen.
The contribution to the CIES 2026 theme lies in showing how higher education, like K–12 systems, is caught in the crosscurrents of political division. Colleges of education, positioned to cultivate sustainability literacy in future generations, are constrained or enabled by their surrounding sustainability cultures. When aligned, they can model democratic engagement and peacebuilding; when fractured, they risk reproducing divisions and leaving future teachers—and their students—without the knowledge and capacities needed to confront the climate crisis.

Author

• Samantha Lindgren, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign