School Mathematics Curriculum and the Governing of the Modern Subject

Thinking school mathematics with the Foucauldian notion of governmentality allows the exploration of the functioning of the mathematics curriculum as a government technology. The practices and discourses of mathematics education fabricate the rational, objective, universal subject, who becomes the Modern cosmopolitan citizen. A genealogical analysis addresses the insertion of school mathematics in the Spanish colonial project in Colombia and in its subsequent mutations in the consolidation of the nation’s state in the 20th century. The study shows how the Colombian mathematics curriculum affects the entry of the nation in the path towards development. It also points to the inscription of Modern norms and forms of thinking and being in Colombian children. This dual process maintains the exclusion of subjectivities that do not align with the Modern self. This analysis questions the naïve narrative of empowerment that is frequently attributed to school mathematics.