Subnational Responses to Federal Denial: Reframing ESE Policy in the U.S.

• 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

Building on the district-level scan of paper 1, this paper offers qualitative insights into how education administrators—those tasked with designing and implementing sustainability or climate initiatives—understand and frame their work. In a context where federal denial of climate change and planetary crisis has at times shaped national priorities, subnational actors play an increasingly important role. Administrators in states and districts must navigate competing pressures from school boards, parents, policymakers, and students. Their framing strategies reveal how educational leaders mediate between global imperatives, national politics, and local values.
The research draws on semi-structured interviews with 20 administrators from states and districts recognized for holistic environmental and sustainability education (ESE) initiatives that integrate both facilities and curriculum. The interviews, to be conducted in the fall of 2025, explore how administrators articulate the purpose of their initiatives, the challenges they encounter, and the frames they use to legitimize their work to different stakeholders.
Social movement framing theory provides a powerful lens for analyzing these narratives. Administrators often confront frame alignment dilemmas (Snow et al., 1986). For example, some may adopt depoliticized frames centered on efficiency, modernization, or stewardship. For example, by diagnosing waste or outdated infrastructure as the problem, proposing cost-saving upgrades, and motivating action through appeals to fiscal responsibility, they may minimize conflict with skeptical stakeholders. These frames allow sustainability initiatives to proceed even in politically hostile environments, but they risk narrowing the meaning of sustainability to technocratic fixes. Others, especially in progressive urban districts, may adopt justice-oriented frames, where inequality and climate risk are interconnected problems. These administrators may motivate action by emphasizing intergenerational justice and student activism. Based on prior studies, we know that in these contexts, students often act as frame amplifiers, pushing administrators and policymakers to align more explicitly with climate justice narratives (Verschueren, 2025).
This study contributes to the CIES 2026 theme by showing how educational leaders negotiate the boundaries of possibility in divided contexts. Administrators are not passive implementers but active framers, whose choices shape whether ESE initiatives reinforce divisions, avoid controversy, or open space for sustainable futures through justice-oriented approaches. By analyzing the micro-politics of framing, this paper highlights the everyday struggles of those at the frontlines of implementing climate and sustainability education at the local level in divided societies.

Author

• Carine Verschueren, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign