Approaches to Algebra: Perspectives for Research and Teaching

Abstract

The introduction of school algebra can take many different directions: the rules for transforming and solving equations (to which current teaching often reduces algebra), the solving of specific problems or classes of problems (which has played an important role historically in the development of algebra and its teaching), the generalization of laws governing numbers (a very strong focus in certain curricula), the more recent introduction of the concepts of variable and function (which appeared much later historically and which occupy a position of growing importance in some programs), and the study of algebraic structures (which marked the school curriculum in the 1960's under the influences of modern mathematics).