Digital transformation is reshaping learning processes, access to education and opportunities for participation. A digital culture (Stalder, 2021) also influences inclusive education. How can schools design learning opportunities that enable all children to participate and do justice to the diversity of learners? Research on inclusive pedagogy (Florian & Black-Hawkins, 2011) shows that barriers often arise from instructional design and can be mitigated through targeted planning. However, research on the digital divide (Ragnedda & Ruiu, 2018) suggests that digitalisation without an inclusive focus may exacerbate social inequality.

In practice, however, inclusion and digitalisation are often still addressed separately in schools (Schulz, 2021). Schools may have digital tools available, but these are not systematically used to support inclusive learning and to break down barriers. Digital technologies are also reshaping the roles, responsibilities and forms of cooperation of multi-professional teams, a development that has received little empirical attention in schools thus far. DigInTeach addresses this issue by systematically linking  inclusion, digital transformation and multi-professional collaboration.

The team of researchers is addressing the following research questions:

• how co-constructive collaboration takes place during digital transformation;

• how roles, routines and responsibilities evolve within teams;

• how students experience accessibility, usability and participation in the newly developed learning environments.

Methodologically, the project employs qualitative approaches, such as:

• focus group interviews with multi-professional teams;

• criteria-based classroom observations;

• analysis of collaboratively developed learning materials;

• focus group interviews with pupils perspectives on access and participation;

• team reflections across both DBR cycles.

Teaching teams receive support from trained mentors, and the ongoing refinement of the learning environments is directly informed by insights from the research cycles.

The project is expected to provide evidence-based insights into how digital media can reduce learning barriers, open up personalised learning pathways and promote participation among all pupils. It will also identify effective patterns of multi-professional collaboration that are relevant to digitally inclusive teaching.

The resulting digitally inclusive teaching approaches will be documented so that schools can adapt, scale up and implement them in different contexts. In this way, DigInTeach will contribute to an equitable digital transformation that actively addresses digital and social inequality.