Interdisciplinary Aspects of Modelling in Mathematics Education Activities Conducted in South America

We present part of the findings of the survey conducted for the 14th International Congress on Mathematical Education, “On the teaching and learning of mathematical modelling and interdisciplinary mathematics education,” focusing on modelling literature published by South American authors. The aim is to characterize what interdisciplinarity is and investigate how it appears in such literature. We reviewed the present state-of-the-art in the field. Analyses have shown that literature takes the interdisciplinary nature of mathematical modelling activities for granted. However, in practice, modelling activities are mostly focused on mathematical content and few works present an in-depth philosophical discussion regarding modelling and interdisciplinarity. Besides, effectively interdisciplinary activities are conducted mainly in undergraduate courses other than mathematics.