Why (mathematics) education in a democracy must be critical education

Education, as a fixed component of society, has the task of forming democratic principles and values in addition to subject-specific goals. Critical competencies must be promoted in every school subject. In this paper, teaching principles of critical education are derived from the requirements of democracy. Furthermore, it is argued that mathematics education has a special role to play here, but that, at the same time, mathematics’ unique characteristics may explain why it is still no matter of course to integrate critical aspects into this subject