THE ROLE OF MATHEMATICS IN POLITICS AS AN ISSUE FOR MATHEMATICS TEACHING

In May 2007 the first author of this article arrived from Mexico to begin his doctoral studies at Roskilde University in Denmark under the supervision of the second author. Coming as an outsider to Roskilde University, there were many glaring particularities of this University such as: the project based study programmes in mathematics and science, the focus on mathematical modelling and the critical perspective on modelling, and the approach to research in mathematics education. Therefore, it was natural to take inspiration from the Roskilde experiences with teaching mathematical modelling, and from Danish research related to the teaching and learning of modelling, in the design of one of the on-line in-service courses developed as part of his PhD project. This paper is a spin off from this work. Our focus is on the analyses of some examples of mathematical models used in the Mexican society of today, and we seek to justify why and illustrate how such examples can be included in mathematics teaching and in teacher education.