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Research aim and relevance to Nordic educational research: This study examines two of the mayor paradigms that in the last decade has gained impact on educational policies in Europe: inclusive education and the digitalisation of education. Although the amount of research about each paradigm is vast, there is less known about the relation between the two.

The Nordic schools are among the most technology dense schools in Europe (IMD, 2021). In Sweden, several governmental initiatives to implement digital technology in education have been launched since the late 1960’s (e.g, Gu & Lindberg, 2021) and new curricula and policies accentuates the importance of ensuring every child’s ability to participate in and contribute to the digitalised society. Concerns about ‘every child’ is also the foundation of the so called Nordic model of education (e.g. Lundahl, 2016).

To that end, this study adds knowledge to the sparsely researched area of the special education practice in digitalised school systems guided by the RQ:

• How can inclusive education and the digitalisation of education be understood in relation to the special education practice? 

Theoretical framework: To analyse how structural and educational changes transform object-oriented special education activities for SENCOs and SETs, this article uses the theoretical framework CHAT (Engeström, 1987, 2015). The analytical focus of this study is to analyse how the SENCOs and SETs describe the object of inclusive education in a digitalised special education practice by using the concepts of contradictions and congruencies. 

Methods: The study was conducted in a mid-sized municipality in Sweden and combines data from seven interviews and 36 surveys with special education practitioners. The motive for the mixed method was to gain both deep and broad knowledge about the studied phenomena (Johnson et al., 2007) – the special education practice in digitalised school systems. 

Expected results: The yet tentative results are expected to show how inclusive education and digitalisation relate to, interact with, and oppose to each other and what consequences this may have for the special education practice. 

As society has gotten increasingly digitalized, schools have made extensive efforts to accommodate to that development. With the digitalization of school, the special education practice and the roles of special education needs coordinators (SENCOs) and special education teachers (SETs) change. However, there is a lack of research examining this transformation, a gap which this exploratory study opens up for new understandings of. This mixed method study explores the special education practice in a municipality in Sweden, one of the most digitalized countries in the world. The findings show that SENCOs and SETs have highly positive beliefs about digital tools in special education, but at the same time their frequency of use varies greatly. Also, the study identifies special educational activities engaging with digital technology, describing a work practice with complex expectations of the special education professionals also in the area of digital teaching and learning. Furthermore, the competencies considered as necessary for handling the expectations are discussed.

Two educational trends that have had major impacts on school policies of the last few decades are inclusive education and digitalisation. To that end, the purpose of this study is to examine how inclusive education and the digitalisation of education are related, understood, and represented in one case of Swedish special education practice. Using activity theory as a theoretical framework, the results of this study suggest that the meaning of inclusive education has shifted, and that digitalisation has entailed both congruencies and contradictions in special education activities aiming for inclusive education. Although digitalisation was described as providing alternatives for inclusive school practices, new expectations and work assignments sometimes exceeded the special educators' professional knowledge.