The article identifies three narratives about mathematics education. The first claims that mathematics is a wonderful subject, which provides a true foundation for human knowledge and progress. The second presents mathematics as a suspicious subject, which serves functions of oppression. The third highlights that mathematics has critical potentials and might serve the development of social justice. The narratives can be read as essentialist accounts, but also as describing contingencies. The last interpretation makes us see mathematics education as a site for socio-political struggles, where nothing is given in advance.