Critical mathematics pedagogy is an approach to mathematics education that includes a practical and philosophical commitment to liberation. Approaches that involve critical mathematics pedagogy give special attention to the social, political, cultural and economic contexts of oppression, as they can be understood through mathematics. They also analyze the role that mathematics plays in producing and maintaining potentially oppressive social, political, cultural or economic structures. Finally, critical mathematics pedagogy demands that critique is connected to action promoting more just and equitable social, political or economic reform.

Critical mathematics pedagogy builds on critical theory developed in the post-Marxist Frankfurt School, as well as critical pedagogy developed out of critical theory by Brazilian educator and educational theorist Paulo Freire. Definitions of critical mathematics pedagogy and critical mathematics education differ among those who practice it and write about it in their work. The focus of critical mathematics pedagogy shifts between three core tenets, but always includes some attention to all three: (1) analysis of injustice and inequitable relations of power made possible through mathematics, (2) critiques of the ways in which mathematics is used to structure and maintain power, and (3) critiques toward plans of action for change and the use of mathematics to reveal and oppose injustices, as well as imagine proposals for more equitable and just relations.

Those who build their critical mathematics pedagogy with close relations to critical theory, focus on the analysis of mathematics as having "formatting power" that shapes the way we understand and organize the world. The assumption underlying critical mathematics pedagogy that comes from critical theory is the notion that mathematics is not neutral. According to critical mathematics, neither mathematics itself nor the teaching or learning of mathematics can be value-neutral, or free of interpretation. The critical mathematics group (est. 1990), one of the first groups of teachers and researchers to convene around the work of critical mathematics, state that mathematics is (1) knowledge constructed by humans, (2) the set of knowledges constructed by all groups of humans, not only the Eurocentric knowledge traditionally included in academic texts and (3) a human enterprise in which understanding results from action in social, cultural, political and economic context.

Marilyn Frankenstein, the first educator to coin the term critical mathematics pedagogy in the United States in her 1983 article "Critical Mathematics Pedagogy: An Application of Paulo Freire's Epistemology," illustrates one way in which mathematics is not neutral using the example of the world map. She explains that in order to represent a three-dimensional object on a two dimensional surface, such as is necessary when mapping the earth, map-makers must make decisions about which types of distortions to allow. For example, the most traditionally accepted and commonly used world map is the Mercator map which enlarges the size of Europe and shrinks the size of Africa - a side-effect of the way it works (to assist navigation). This representation can be read to suggest that certain parts of the world are larger, and therefore more important or more powerful than others via the (inaccurate) size comparison presented in the map.

Ole Skovsmose's first publication on critical mathematics pedagogy in Europe coincided with Marilyn Frankenstein's in the United States. It refers to "mathemacy" which would parallel critical literacy for mathematics. He explains that "mathematics colonizes part of reality and reorders it." Therefore, "the goal of mathematics education should be to understand the formatting power of mathematics and to empower people to examine this formatting power so they will not be controlled by it." According to him, mathemacy would consist of three components (1) mathematical knowing, or the skills developed in traditional mathematics classrooms, (2) technological knowing, or the ability to build models with mathematics and (3) reflective knowing, or competency in evaluating applications of mathematics. It is specifically the third component that makes this approach to mathematical literacy a critical one.

Bülent Avcı, through classroom-based participatory action research, in his recent book, Critical Mathematics Education: Can Democratic Education Survive under Neoliberal Regime?, re-conceptualizes Critical Mathematics Education as a bottom-up response to the top-down imposed market-driven implementations and neoliberal hegemony in education. In this context, Bülent Avcı offers rich ethnographic data to redefine concepts such as dialogic pedagogy, collaborative learning, and inquiry-based mathematics education in order to promote justice-based critical citizenship and participatory democracy. In that he distinguishes these concepts from neoliberal pedagogy. Bülent Avcı simultaneously draws on the ideas of Paulo Freire and Jurgen Habermas to develop a unique approach to Critical Mathematics Education.

Those who build their critical mathematics pedagogy out of critical pedagogy focus on empowerment of the learners as experts and actors for change in their own world. Critical mathematics pedagogy demands that students and teachers use mathematics to understand "relations of power, resource inequalities between different social groups and explicit discrimination" in order to take action for change. Paulo Freire (1921–1997), Brazilian educator and educational theorist, commonly regarded as the originator of critical pedagogy, suggests that most teaching happens in a "banking" model where teachers hold the information and students are assumed to be passive receptacles for that knowledge. Freire's alternative to the banking method is a "problem-posing" model of education. Through this model students and teachers participate together in a mutually humanizing process of dialogue. With the support of their teacher, students examine problems from their own lives and work collaboratively to generate solutions. One goal of critical pedagogy, according to Freire, is to develop critical consciousness or conscientização (Portuguese). Both teachers and students are expected to challenge their own "well-established ways of thinking that frequently limit their own potential" and that of others. They are especially expected to challenge those ways of thinking that might reproduce instead of challenge oppressive ways of thinking and being. This commitment to learning and critique for the purpose of action for change is also known as praxis, the intersection of theory and practice, another core tenet of the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire.

Marilyn Frankenstien argues that "most current uses of mathematics support hegemonic ideologies." In particular, she focuses on the mathematical science of statistics which supports the unquestioned acceptance of uncertain conclusions. She argues that the use of the banking model in mathematics education (memorization and procedural focus) produces "math anxiety" in many people, especially and disproportionately those in non-dominant groups (women, people of color, lower income students). This math anxiety then leads people to "not probe the mathematical mystifications" that drive industrial society.