A society’s capacity to reason about national and international issues influences the direction of its domestic and foreign policy. The manner in which citizens approach, conceptualize, and evaluate such issues is ultimately linked to the quality of the global environment. The central concern of the present study is the development of policy thought.

For the purpose of this paper, policy thought has been distinguished from political thought. Political thought may be described as concrete thinking about political phenomena; it includes one’s knowledge of and attitude toward objects, persons, and events in the political sphere. Policy thought, however, entails the abstract manner in which one conceptualizes and approaches policy issues. Policy thought necessarily encompasses political thought. Political thought may be considered a necessary but insufficient basis for policy thought.

The primary focus of the paper, then, is on the development of abstract thinking about policy issues. The three general purposes of the paper may be delineated as follows:

to provide a review of the research regarding the development of policy thought, including

indepth interviews with children and adolescents,

the studies of specific aspects of formal operational thought, and

the studies of the relationship between policy reasoning and other developmental theories/stages;

to discuss the implications of the research for the development of children’s policy thought; and

to offer suggestions for future research in the area of policy thought.