Inclusive text activities in post-digital education: Support in context

Contemporary middle-school teachers are required to support students with diverse abilities and needs in classrooms that are simultaneously highly digitized and firmly analogue. The post-digital classroom is, in this sense, dualistic, where digital and analogue teaching, texts, and forms of support are intertwined (Campbell & Olteanu, 2024). While the post-digital environment offers new opportunities for participation and learning, it also risks amplifying existing inequities, both academically and socially. This study presents a detailed analysis of material from a Swedish middle-school classroom to address the research question: How do middle-school teachers balance academic and social support to promote equity in inclusive text activities within a post-digital classroom?

Inclusive education is here understood as a social practice in which all students receive the academic and social support necessary for meaningful participation. Drawing on the framework proposed by G. Coogle et al. (2022), support is conceptualized as tiered: all students are provided with an accessible learning environment, some receive extended and differentiated support, and a few received individualized support. The teacher’s support is viewed as situated within both immediate and proximal contexts (Brianza et al., 2022), where instructional decisions are continuously shaped by the dynamic interaction between classroom events and broader organizational and technological conditions.

The material presented forms part of a larger design-based research project (McKenney & Reeves, 2019) conducted during 2024. The current presentation is based on student-produced texts, extensive field notes, photographs, and teacher interviews. The interviews were conducted in close connection to the observed lessons, using stimulated recall to validate observational findings. The data have been analyzed thematically.

The results indicate that both immediate and proximal contexts influence the social and academic support teachers provide. Technical issues arising at either contextual level affect both the accessibility of the learning environment and the differentiation of tasks and expected outcomes. The contextual factors seem to offset the balance of social and academic support. As the use of digital tools in Nordic classrooms continues to evolve, this study contributes to understanding how teachers can, and cannot, support all students. Although digital tools are used globally, the contextual factors of classrooms and schools remain important in creating inclusive educational environments where students with varying needs and abilities can learn together.

References

Brianza, E., Schmid, M., Tondeur, J., & Petko, D. (2022). Situating TPACK: A Systematic Literature Review of Context as a Domain of Knowledge. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 22(4), 707–753. https://citejournal.org/volume-22/issue-4-22/general/situating-tpack-a-systematic-literature-review-of-context-as-a-domain-of-knowledge

Campbell, C., & Olteanu, A. (2024). The Challenge of Postdigital Literacy: Extending Multimodality and Social Semiotics for a New Age. Postdigital Science and Education, 6(2), 572–594. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-023-00414-8

G. Coogle, C., Storie, S., & Rahn, N. L. (2022). A Framework for Promoting Access, Increasing Participation, and Providing Support in Early Childhood Classrooms. Early Childhood Education Journal, 50(5), 867–877. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-021-01200-6

McKenney, S., & Reeves, T. C. (2019). Conducting Educational Design Research (2nd ed.). Routledge.