This paper discusses the role of the culture in secondary mathematics education. A historical and philosophical look at the relationship between the real world and mathematics and mathematics education is developed. The U.S. secondary mathematics curriculum is explored both historically and philosophically to try to ascertain its changing attitudes toward applications and the culture over time. Two University of Chicago School Mathematics Project (UCSMP) texts, "Transition Mathematics" and "UCSMP Algebra" were compared with other commercial textbooks to determine the number and type of cultural contexts. The four commercial textbooks studied were: "Heath Pre-Algebra"; Merrill's "Mathematics 7"; Dolciani's "Algebra 1"; and Saxon's "Algebra 1." Among the findings, the study concluded that UCSMP materials have about three times as many cultural contexts than the four commercial texts. UCSMP materials also had many more contexts in the non-traditional applications of mathematics such as demographics, business, politics, law, technology, etc. The appendices, which constitute over half of the document, provide lists of the cultural contexts found in each of the six textbooks analyzed. The bibliography contains 50 sources. (KR)