This paper aims to describe and analyzes enunciations that have been spread in the institutional setting of GerAção/POA about the kinds of mathematics required for users to be “protagonists of their own lives”. Thinking about inclusion and the mathematical need that those subjects may have, I have questioned whether the school mathematics can be a form of exclusion and how this might occur. The empirical material consisted of four semi-structured interviews with health professionals who work in that place. As a theoretical basis, I have adopted the post-structuralist perspective, particularly Foucault’s theorizations developed in studies carried out by Lopes and Eidelwein, among others. The study has evidenced the need for teaching kinds of mathematics that meet the demands generated from the users’ practices, in order to enable their social and economic autonomy. School mathematics is not suitable for GerAção/POA users as it has a formal language that is distant from the one used by the subjects in that environment and does not meet their needs.
