Explosion of Forces: the Provance of Mathematical Modeling in Brazilian Mathematics Education

This article reports the analysis, based on the power relations of an era, of the reasons for the emergence of the mathematical modeling discourse in Brazilian mathematics education. Pointedly, we used theoretical-methodological contributions linked to the theories of the philosopher Michel Foucault. The analytical material includes master’s and doctoral thesis defended in Brazil between the years 1976 to 1999, focusing on mathematical modeling in mathematics education. The research highlighted a crisis in mathematics teaching based on two statements: “Students find it hard to learn mathematics” and “Mathematics is far from reality.” Furthermore, we discuss the origin of the modeling out of political, economic, and educational discourses. This explosion of forces was problematized based on some events: the Cold War, the military dictatorship, capitalism, industrial expansion, technicist pedagogy, and the Modern Mathematics Movement.