Strangeness in the Proportion: strangeness in the nucleon probed via parity-violating electron scattering

The contribution of strange quark/anti-quark pairs to the properties of the nucleon has been a topic of considerable interest for some time. While $s\overline{s}$ pairs are clearly observed in deep-inelastic scattering processes, and have reasonably well-determined parton distribution functions, their influence on static nucleon properties, such as the scaler, axial and vector matrix elements, is more controversial. Their contribution to the vector matrix elements, where are encoded as the strange electric and strange magnetic form factors, can be isolated using parity-violating electron scattering as a probe. Over the past 15 year or so a, program of such measurements has been underway at Jefferson Lab (HAPPEx and G0 collaborations), the MAMI microtron at Mainz (PV-A4) and MIT/Bates (SAMPLE). These have lead to a remarkably consistent picture providing rather precise values for these atrange form factors over a range of $Q^2$. The results from these experiments, and prospects for the near future, will be reviewed.