Introduction

Abstract

The research that we report on in this volume focuses on the beliefs and actions of teachers of English learners (ELs) when confronted by school district, state, and federal educational policies and literacy teaching mandates. In this chapter, we begin by providing a brief overview of U.S. educational policy (particularly as it relates to ELs) and a summary of how, in recent decades, literacy has been taught in the U.S. We then explore scholars’ contrasting views of the role of teachers in policy making, with a particular focus on teacher agency. We close this chapter with a synopsis of the three studies that we conducted and that are reported on in Chaps. 2, 3 and 4.