Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to enrich one's understanding of, and facilitate conversations about, the situation of social studies education in policy landscapes. It discusses several regular themes, which include: the roles of various actors in the construction and implementation of policy, from federal to local levels; the nature, importance, and impact of teacher agency as political activity. The book also include the relationship of policy design and implementation to the contexts in and resources with which it is made and enacted; and the ways in which people take active, neutral, and averse positions on influencing and responding to policy, and the consequences of those positions. It suggests a propensity toward policy-analytical rather than policy-evaluative framing among social studies scholars, to one's knowledge, neither is especially prevalent in the field.