This research is a qualitative case study of global and national (Brazilian) Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) policies in historical perspectives. My overall objectives are two-fold: First, to understand how global ESE policy frameworks have evolved ideologically over time--a concept I refer to as ESE policy trajectories; and second, to understand how a national policy framework has both shaped and been shaped by these evolving global policy trajectories. I focus on two policy scripts: Environmental Education (EE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). There are three pillars to the conceptual framework of this study: The first rests on Gramscian political theories of power. The second employs a critical theory of nature-society relations through the lens of political ecology. The third introduces a mobilities perspective and a global norm-making approach in critical policy studies. Data collection consisted primarily of archival research of ESE policy texts produced globally and in Brazil between 1972 and 2014, and of interviews with UNESCO and Brazilian ESE policy actors. Findings show that there are competing scripts in global ESE policy. These scripts have divergent ideological orientations, and they have evolved over time. At the global-national policy interface, Brazilian EE policy was once convergent with dominant global policy prescriptions, but became deeply resistant to them, for ideological reasons, when the dominant script shifted from EE to ESD. Brazilian EE policy actors have thus been selective when appropriating global scripts. Findings also show that they have been active in global norm-making, both producing and circulating oppositional global scripts (critical EE), as well as making an effort to directly modify the dominant script (ESD). Analysis suggests that Brazilian EE policy actors have engaged in this process to legitimize their oppositional policy scripts within the global norm-making arena, a process partly driven by the need to maintain the viability of their political project sub-nationally. An inverted dynamic also occurred in UNESCO's engagement with national policy actors. UNESCO modified its ESD script in response to national policy-makers' efforts as part of a broader legitimation strategy in a contested policy field. The legitimation needs of policy actors has thus driven a process of policy recursivity in a contested global norm-making arena and at the global-national policy interface. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]