A Transnational Mathematics Curriculum? Imaginaries and Implications

Although internationalization of education is central to global policy reform, it is a contested theme. Mathematics education remains pivotal to these conversations, from the privilege afforded to mathematics in global trade, economic, and political discourses. Cross-national comparisons of performance, through large-scale assessments such as TIMSS and PISA, promote policy imperatives for an international mathematics curriculum. We explore the implications of a transnational mathematics curriculum instead, through the tensions between discursive rationales of competition or cooperation, selection, segregation or inclusion, and hegemony or agency. These perspectives raise questions: We pay attention to how funding, from state and nonstate actors, and global philanthropy, influences curricular imaginaries of mathematics education, and the implications for teachers and students. Finally, we argue for a transnational curriculum which maintains integrity to the particularity of place, culture, agency and knowledge, sensitivity to difference and disparities, with a shared commitment to collaboration for equity, justice, and sustainability.