Environmental and climate change education remains on the margins of education and climate change policy. This paper draws on Foucauldian theoretical resources to examine England's climate change education policy landscape and understand the causes of this marginalisation. Informed by policy historiography, we examine key events and shifts in climate change, education and environmental education since the turn of the millennium. Using policy archaeology, we 'excavate' the contemporary policy landscape and identify that: i) policy is lacking; ii) responding to the climate crisis is overlooked in education; iii) pro-environmental ambition is absent; and, iv) economic values dominate. In a global context where activists have called for 'more!' climate change education, the analyses reveal the complexity of the problem. A 'web of conditions' governing climate change education policy is illuminated. Foucault-informed analytical tools offer insights on how this web may be rebuilt.

This paper explores the nature of climate change education‐related policy influence in England at a time when public consciousness about the need to accelerate climate change action was heightened, and as the 2018 climate strikes gathered momentum around the world. Informed by Foucault's concept of ‘governmentalities’, and using data generated through 24 exploratory interviews and reflexive thematic analysis, we examine the extent to which influential individuals were advocating for policy change. We discuss the nature of policy influence with particular reference to the ‘stances’ that individuals adopted relative to climate change education policy influence and noting a common tendency exhibited amongst participants which was a tendency towards ‘deference’. Coupling our insights with theorisations of dissent, we consider how ‘infra‐political dissent’ could support key individuals to ‘step up’ and influence for more effective policy relative to climate change education, and to other areas of education or environment policy.

Over the past decade, Japan’s rich tradition of environmental education-related policy has shifted to encompass international discourse concerning global competition and education for sustainable development. In view of this shift, this article explores environmental education-related policy enactment from the perspective of high school teachers. In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 experienced teachers and were analysed using the environmental education-related conceptual lenses of Lucas (1972) and Stevenson (1987, 2007). The findings suggest that the current policy enactment in Japanese high schools features a narrow interpretation of environmental education that emphasises knowledge acquisition and overlooks the development of practical skills, attitudes or democratic citizenship. This case study highlights the necessity that, for a progressive environmental education to become established, policymakers must find a way to balance local knowledge with the demands of international organizations, paying particular attention to curriculum ideology, policy competition and the teachers’ voice in policy creation.