Meanings of decision-making in probability and statistics: Comparing Chilean and Danish upper secondary school curricula

In this article I investigate the roles given to decision-making in probability and statistics upper secondary school curriculum, in a comparative study between Chile and Denmark. Drawing upon Fairclough’s model for Critical discourse analysis, I analyse selected official curricular texts as examples of broader discursive practices. In particular, I focus on the positioning of social actors and legitimation strategies. Present discourses position students as active decision makers, though in the Chilean case this is only evident in more recent texts. The teaching and learning of probability and statistics are legitimised through the appeal to political, professional and educational authorities, and through narratives of necessity for rational, grounded, evidence-based decisions. In this aspect Danish texts are more open to complex social and political decision processes. The analysis illustrates a common search for linking mathematics education to democratic involvement in social and political decision-making, but failing to specify the relevance of probability and statistics beyond the individual psychological scope.