In their opening comments to this special issue on data use, Coburn and Turner point to "one of the most central questions in social theory: the interrelationship between macro-social structure and micro-level action." Questions about data use--which entail social phenomena that range from federal policy to moment-to-moment interactions among teachers and administrators as they use data to decide what to do next--provide a particularly fruitful place to explore this broader issue. How do policies, social structures, artifacts, and attendant classifications that span multiple organizational contexts get taken up in local practice, and how, in turn, are they generated in and from local practice? How do these interactive processes shape the way people understand themselves and the world around them, and how do these understandings shape their individual and collective capacities for action? In this commentary, the author analyzes the rich examples of data use research and practice provided by the contributors to this issue to argue for the importance of exploring the macro-micro dialectic in education research and practice more broadly. (Contains 3 notes.)