How can my class demonstrate democratic citizenship?

Simmt suggests in Citizenship Education in the Context of School Mathematics that mathematics plays an integral role in social, political and economic structures. Knowing mathematics would be a powerful skill for one to integrate into society. Simmit wants our youth to "understand and critique the formatting power of mathematics in society". She suggests instead of teaching math as fact, skills and processes, teach math as a creative process for exploration and give students responsibility for explainations.

In my classroom, depending on what type of class I will be doing, it is easier to do the latter suggestion than the first because of time constraint. For the first suggestion, Simmit suggests posing open ended problems. My fear that the students would not be comfortable enough with the mathematics yet to take on such a challenge. However, I can see myself dedicating 3 or so teaching days to open ended group problem solving to help train their minds for how mathematics can be done. I am more opened to giving my class responsibility for explainations. I may do something instrumentally and ask why I may have done that. Another way to engage the class in the dicussion of explaination is to show two ways how students do the question (in which the results may or may not differ) anad ask the class which solution is correct (or are both correct) and to show which parts are correct mathematically and which are not.