Several investigations have shown that the mathematics textbook continues to be the main work tool for teachers and, among other things, constitutes the referent of school mathematical knowledge that they must teach to students. However, it has also been manifested that the texts can be a source of conflicts in both students and teachers, due to the treatment they give to mathematical notions. In this article we have been interested in how textbooks develop the study of algebra in primary education and, in particular, if these ways of presenting algebraic notions could cause conflicts. To carry out our study, we used some theoretical-methodological tools of the Ontosemiotic Approach (OSA) of mathematical knowledge and instruction, such as the notion of conflict and the ontosemiotic configuration, which allowed a systematic analysis of the mathematics textbooks in terms of the problems, definition of concepts, properties, procedures, arguments and representations. As a main result, categories of potential conflicts for the study of algebra are identified and discussed, which could lead to errors or misconceptions of algebraic notions by students or teachers.