ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 aimed to make explicit some of the underlying assumptions, knowledge and beliefs that have shaped current thinking about teachers' subject knowledge. It is these underlying assumptions which are likely to influence investigation of teachers' subject knowledge. Enquiry in teaching rarely remains purely conceptual, however, since teaching is a practical activity and, hence, arguments about practice can hardly be divorced from the classroom context. Such assumptions, nevertheless, are likely to affect the research questions which are posed and the methods which are used. More fundamentally and substantively, the nature and type of knowledge which is investigated is likely to be informed, if not determined by views about what is thought to be important by researchers, by those making the policy decisions, or those dealing with the professional issues which are to be found.
