ABSTRACT
The lived experiences of practicing social studies teachers are crucial to discussions of education policy, its enactments, and its consequences. This chapter discusses prominent social studies policy initiative—the C3 Framework—as an example of an "inside the system" initiative. It considers what policy priorities social studies educators should advocate to develop "inside-the-system" initiatives, within existing policymaking pathways, with an appreciation for the lived experiences of social studies teachers. In schools, social studies teachers might use parent-teacher meetings, committee and community meetings, and collaborative work with other teachers as spaces to garner support for more ambitious views of the field. The social studies field needs to press forcefully against powerful educational reform currents that minimize the centrality of public goods, democratic practices, and the very idea of public schooling. The chapter concludes by proposing several guiding questions to inform policy discussions—questions that might serve the interest of moving the field in some small measure toward more meaningful, ambitious, critical, and democratic ends.
