This paper examines the formation of citizens and their differences in and through the contemporary mathematics education reforms in Turkey. The analysis focuses on how internationally designated mathematical competencies assemble with the nation-specific trajectories and revitalise cultural priorities. Curricular techniques, which aim at improving mathematics teaching and learning, simultaneously order proper and improper modes of action and participation. The orderings include the formation of children as active and responsible for their learning opportunities where they continually make plans and control themselves. The analysis makes visible how seemingly neutral pedagogical tools to teach and learn mathematics assemble with the formation of desired citizens for the globalised world and act upon children who diverge from those globally proposed norms. Cultural-pedagogical translation processes in mathematics education reforms provide a critical confrontation with the differentiation practices of self and Other.