16. Globalisation of mathematics education and the world’s first monoculture

The global spread of mass schooling supports ideologies of human capital and consumerism that we can consider as the world’s first monoculture. Educational organisations with global reaches, such as the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, spread particular mathematics education goals that present opportunities for analysis and critique by mathematics educators who seek to advance causes beyond or in opposition to the consumer industrial complex. In this chapter I utilise Joel Spring’s review of perspectives on globalisation and education to motivate extended analysis of one example of ‘assessment spread’ within mathematics education, namely the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. Complementary methods of analysis (historical/contextual and content-based) reveal a strong association between mathematics education assessment spread and the rise of a world culture emphasising human capital and lifelong consumerism.