Polarized structure functions: a status report

We review the present status of polarized structure functions measured in deep-inelastic scattering. We discuss the x and Q^2 dependence of the structure function g_1, and how it can be used to test perturbative QCD at next-to-leading order and beyond. We summarize the current knowledge of polarized parton distributions, in particular the determination of the first moment of the quark and gluon distributions and the axial charge of the nucleon. We critically examine what future experiments could teach us on the polarized structure of the nucleon.