The COVID-19 global pandemic widely affected education across the world and engendered unprecedented scenarios that required expeditious responses. In South Africa, the pandemic came on top of pre-existing inequalities in the education system. Using a qualitative research method of exploratory and descriptive nature, this study engaged a social justice framework to explore the teaching and learning of mathematics during the COVID-19 lockdown in a context of historical disadvantage. A sample of twenty-three Grade 12 mathematics teachers at various public secondary schools in Gauteng, South Africa was used in the study. The teachers were selected through purposive sampling. A Google-generated open-ended questionnaire and follow-up telephonic interviews were used to collect data. Data were analysed thematically in five steps. The findings revealed that the WhatsApp platform is a valuable tool that can support the teaching and learning of mathematics beyond the classroom in the contexts of historical disadvantage. The findings also provided insights into how mathematics teachers became learners themselves during emergency remote teaching (ERT) as they had to adapt to digital teaching, find solutions to unfamiliar problems and acquire knowledge from a larger mathematics education community around the globe. The article discusses these findings and teachers’ challenges of transitioning from traditional face-to-face classrooms to ERT and how they were addressed. At the time of publishing the article, most learners in South Africa had started going to school on a rotational basis. Nonetheless, the study reported in this article is of importance as ERT in the context of historical disadvantage has foregrounded issues of inequality in the South African education system that must be dealt with urgently.

In this article I report on research intended to characterise and compare the thinking styles of Grade 10 learners studying Mathematics and those studying Mathematical Literacy in eight schools in the Gauteng West district in South Africa, so as to develop guidelines as to what contributes to their subject choice of either Mathematics or Mathematical Literacy in Grade 10. Both a qualitative and a quantitative design were used with three data collection methods, namely document analysis, interviews and questionnaires. Sixteen teachers participated in one-to-one interviews and 1046 Grade 10 learners completed questionnaires. The findings indicated the characteristics of learners selecting Mathematics and those selecting Mathematical Literacy as a subject and identified differences between the thinking styles of these learners. Both learners and teachers should be more aware of thinking styles in order that the learners are able to make the right subject choice. This article adds to research on the transition of Mathematics learners in the General Education and Training band to Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy in the Further Education and Training band in South Africa.

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Although trigonometry is an important section in secondary school mathematics curricula, many teachers find it challenging to teach as a result of insufficient pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Therefore, the aim of this article was to report on how PCK on trigonometry manifests itself in teachers' practice. This exploratory case study was underpinned by the mathematics knowledge for teaching (MKT) model of Hill et al. (2008). Twelve teachers were purposefully selected from six township schools. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured one-on-one interviews, lesson plans, assessment tasks, and lesson observations; and analyzed using content analysis. The findings show that four elements of PCK on trigonometry manifest themselves in teachers" practice, namely knowledge of subject matter, knowledge of teaching strategies, knowledge of students" conceptions and knowledge of curriculum, but varied in levels of sufficiency. Awareness of these variances forms a useful basis for planning developmental opportunities that could address shortcomings in PCK on trigonometry in teachers" practice. This study adds to few studies in PCK in mathematics by providing empirical evidence on how PCK on trigonometry manifests itself in teachers" practice.

Mathematics teachers' levels of technological pedagogical content knowledge and information and communication technology integration barriers.