  The results of a recent next-to-leading order QCD analysis of the world data
on polarized deep inelastic scattering are reported. New parameterizations are
derived for the quark and gluon distributions, accounting for the massive
Wilson coefficient for the charm quarks, and the value of $\alpha_s(M_z^2)$ is
determined with correlated errors. We obtain $\alpha_s^{\rm NLO}(M_Z^2)= 0.1132
{array}{l} + 0.0056 -0.0095 {array}$. Limits on potential higher twist
contributions to the structure function $g_1(x,Q^2)$ are derived. We also
compare to the results obtained by other groups.
