In this paper we sketch the history and the philosophy of statistics and probability theory and the connections to its political aspects. Knowledge of the cultural embeddedness of statistics and probability theory is an added value in the teaching thereof. The use of statistics and probability is a phenomenon with which everyone is confronted on a daily basis. Beside literacy, numeracy is an important challenge for education. In order to succeed in this task, the traditional curriculum (technique-oriented and individual, competition-oriented) will need to be sacrificed for a curriculum in which there is room for the cultural aspects of statistics and probability theory. For this purpose, cooperative learning is a didactic entry which is suitable for interaction and critical input of pupils.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education