The articles in this issue arose from the keynote presentations and discussions of the Algebra Working Group of the Seventh International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME-7) held in Quebec City, Canada, in August 1992 (official title of the Working Group: The Place of Algebra in Secondary and Tertiary Education). Before presenting an overview of the articles and how they all fit together, let me first say a few words about the origins and structure of the Working Group.
THE ALGEBRA WORKING GROUP AT ICME-7
The embryonic period of this Working Group's existence was devoted to planning the activities of the four 90-min time slots allotted to each of the Working Groups in the Congress program. After consultation with the Advisory Panel, the plan that was adopted consisted of having each of the first three sessions begin with a keynote presentation. The large group then split up into three subgroups according to level: pre-algebra, secondary level, and tertiary level. The daily work of each subgroup began, in general, with a prepared reaction to the previously delivered keynote presentation followed by a discussion that related the main points of the keynote to the concerns of that subgroup's level of algebraic teaching and learning. On the fourth day, all subgroups were brought together for a closing session involving a keynote reaction presentation, which focused on both the presentations and subgroup discussions of the 3 previous days, followed by a general discussion period involving Working Group participants and a panel consisting of the four keynote presenters.
In order to provide for an integrated set of presentations and discussions in the Working Group, it was decided that the overall theme would be, "A New Look at School Algebra-Past, Present, and Future." The unfolding of this theme is elaborated in the next section that describes the content of the articles. Thematic keynote presentations were delivered by Anna Sfard, Alan Bell, Bert Waits, and Abraham Arcavi. The latter was the closing-day reactor to the three previous