Cultural knowledge of latin american games of chance: a tool for developing statistical reasoning in the classroom

Abstract

Games of chance among the indigenous peoples of Latin America have a long history. Used with a ludic purpose and to make decisions in situations of uncertainty, they are a source of cultural knowledge for the development of statistical reasoning. This study proposes a curricular and teaching development alternative that links cultural knowledge about indigenous people's games of chance and the statistical reasoning expected in the curriculum, in the framework of a pedagogical duo established by a mathematics teacher and a cultural scholar. By means of a content analysis in the modeling of the activities, we studied the assessment of the proposal. The results show that the teachers focus on the equiprobability of the events, leaving aside the complexity of the cultural mathematical artifact, while the cultural scholars estimate the limits and scope of the processes in order to make them coherent with local practices.