The concept of inclusive education is defined in diverse ways across contexts and by different researchers, but generally refers to the inclusion of students with varying needs and abilities within the same educational system, schools, and classrooms. According to the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994), education was to shift from a segregation of students based on abilities or disabilities, to inclusion in classrooms and schools (Florian, 2019; Göransson and Nilholm, 2014; Magnússon, 2022; Nilholm, 2021; Paulsrud and Nilholm, 2023). The statement marked a breakthrough for inclusive education as global goal, meaning that as many students as possible should participate as much as possible in general education setting. However, researchers have argued that, even three decades later, the development of inclusive education has been sporadic and uneven both within and between countries (e.g., Magnússon, 2022; Nilholm, 2021). This unevenness is reflected in the persistent ambiguity surrounding the concept of inclusion in educational policy (Magnússon, 2022) and in research across both general and special education (Florian, 2019). In their research review, Göransson and Nilholm (2014) identified four different definitions of inclusion used in research. The first definition regards inclusion as a placement issue, meaning that if students are placed in the same physical environment they are regarded as included. In the second definition, inclusion is seen as physical placement with the addition of special academic and social support for students with disabilities. In the third definition there is shift in the focus of academic support to include all students rather than only giving additional support to students with disabilities. The fourth and final definition builds on the third but also incorporates social support to create a social community for all students. This last definition of inclusion, adding social practice, means that schools in inclusive education function as meaningful and participatory academic and social environments that integrate students’ interests, experiences, and ideas into teaching (Nilholm, 2021).

For this study, inclusion is understood as both providing academic support for all students based on their individual needs and fostering a social community in which every student can participate. This definition is central because earlier conceptualizations reduce inclusion to placement, compensatory support, or broadened instruction, without addressing the relational and community-based conditions through which students’ interests, experiences, and agency are integrated into everyday educational practice. Inclusive education within the general classroom therefore entails ensuring both academic and social accessibility for as many students as possible (Persson et al., 2015). Several teaching models for creating academically accessible inclusive education exist (G. Coogle et al., 2022), such as the use of scaffolding (Morcom and MacCallum, 2012), universal design for learning or UDL (Bray et al., 2024) and differentiated instruction (Tomlinson, 2014). Scaffolding refers to the temporary support provided by a teacher or a peer that enables learners to perform tasks beyond their independent ability, gradually transferring responsibility as competency develops within the proximal zone of development (Verenikina, 2003). It emphasizes dialogue, shared understanding and support both guided learning and enables student participation. Viewed together scaffolding and engagement are closely connected, while scaffolding provides the structure for progression engagement captures the learners behavioral, emotional and cognitive involvement (Li and Xue, 2023). Together, they highlight that inclusive teaching involves balancing guidance with opportunities for belonging, agency and active participation. Building on the fourth definition of inclusive education, Nilholm (2021) concluded in a recent research review that there is limited research on how existing theories of inclusion contribute practically to successful inclusion in the general education setting, explained by a lack of studies about general education teachers realizing inclusion (Magnússon, 2022; Nilholm, 2021). Similarly, a recent review on teacher self-efficacy in inclusive education points to a fragmented and predominantly quantitative approaches leaving limited insight into how competencies are developed and enacted in classrooms (Wray et al., 2022). Together, these findings highlight a gap and the need for further synthesis of research that examines teaching in relation to inclusive education, especially in literacy education, a core domain of schooling where academic participation, engagement, and differentiation are continuously negotiated by general education teachers in ordinary classroom settings.

What it means, and demands, to be able to read, write and develop literacy, constantly needs redefining due to societal and technological changes and development (Barton, 2007; Bloome and Green, 2015; Kalantzis and Cope, 2025). This study takes its standpoint from New Literacy studies (e.g., Barton, 2007; Gee, 2015) where literacy is viewed as a contextually bound ability to communicate in different text activities. The communicative activity can consist of both speaking, reading, writing, and/or designing texts (Jewitt, 2008; Kress, 2003), where text is defined as a holistic entity composed of various modalities and forms of expression, such as words, letters, images and sounds (Domingo et al., 2015; Kress, 2003). Thus, texts can include communication through both printed verbal texts, multimodal texts (Domingo et al., 2015) and in various media, so called media-convergent texts (Kress, 2003). The contextualized view of literacy has resulted in a fragmentation and multitude of defined variations of literacy (Jewitt, 2008). Digital literacy is one such variation, first defined by Gilster (1997. p. 1) as “the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers”. Digital literacy has often been used interchangeably with digital competency in research, further fragmenting the terminology (Pangrazio et al., 2020; Spante et al., 2018). As classroom texts increasingly become digital, multimodal, and media-convergent, literacy teaching necessarily involves digital tools and environments. These developments expand the pedagogical possibilities for supporting diverse learners, for example, through variation in representation and expression, but they also introduce new demands on teachers’ professional knowledge and judgement (Godhe et al., 2020; Starkey, 2020). Thus, literacy education constitutes a critical site where inclusion and digitalization intersect in practice.

To analyze this intersection, this review adopts the concept of Teachers’ Digital Text Competencies (TDTC) as an analytical lens. TDTC refers to teachers’ professionally situated competencies to select, design, interpret, and use digital and multimodal texts for pedagogical purposes in literacy education (Sofkova Hashemi et al., 2020; Sofkova Hashemi et al., forthcoming). Framing teachers’ work in terms of TDTC allows for an examination of how digital text practices can function in relation to support, participation, and engagement in inclusive classrooms. In this review we use competencies to point to teacher professional aspects that can be detected and possibly measured¹. However, the concepts competences and competencies are being used interchangeably without clear separation in existing research.

Compared to skill and ability, competency is a more comprehensive concept including the two priors but also knowledge, understanding and judgement. Demonstrating competency involves using one’s skills and abilities effectively and appropriately in different contexts, applying learning in practice, and adapting it to new situations. Consequently, competencies are highly context-dependent (Illeris, 2012). When the context is digital, however, digital competence (or digital competency) is seen as a concept with a vague conceptual core (Godhe et al., 2020). Its meaning ranges from a technical skills-centered view towards including critical and responsible knowledge and use, and understanding (Skantz-Åberg et al., 2022; Spante et al., 2018). Researchers call for a clearer definition (e.g., Pagani et al., 2016) and point to the fact that the concept of digital competence is used differently in different contexts (Skantz-Åberg et al., 2022). In a global policy context digital competence is used for fostering, measuring, and comparing development in different countries (i.e., OECD, 2023). It also informs national education policy and teacher professional development initiatives. TDTC (Sofkova Hashemi et al., 2020) specifically focuses on the teacher practices of working with multimodal texts using digital tools, and for literacy teaching in a digital environment, combining the textual focus of digital literacy and with the technical skills and abilities of digital competency. TDTC includes both receptive, productive, and communicative skills and abilities, requiring knowledge and understanding of the mediums and modalities used. TDTC requires both basic digital skills, general and/or subject-specific literacy and specific digital text competencies that arise at the intersection of these abilities. Teachers must therefore not only possess these abilities themselves but also understand them theoretically and be able to translate this understanding into classroom practices that support all students’ engagement and development in text-based digital activities.

Although previous reviews have addressed teachers’ digital competences, digital literacy, or the use of digital tools for learning support, they rarely connect these bodies of research explicitly to inclusive education (e.g., Bray et al., 2024; Skantz-Åberg et al., 2022). Consequently, there is limited synthesized knowledge about how teachers’ digital text competencies contribute to inclusive literacy practices or what specific competencies are required to support diverse learners in digitally mediated text activities. Addressing this gap is particularly timely given the increasing expectations placed on teachers to align literacy instruction with both inclusive principles and a rapidly evolving communicative landscape.

In addition, earlier reviews conclude the need for professional development connected to multimodal and digital teaching, assessment and learning (Anderson and Kachorsky, 2019; Tan et al., 2020; Tronsmo and Gilje, 2025).

Against this backdrop, the present review sets out to synthesize research on teachers’ use of digital technologies for reading and writing in inclusive educational contexts. By examining this research through the lens of TDTC, the review seeks to contribute to a more integrated understanding of how inclusive education, literacy, and digitalization are enacted in classroom practice, and to clarify the professional competencies required of teachers working at this intersection.

Previous reviews indicate that, while research on inclusive education and digitalization is expanding, there remains limited clarity regarding how general education teachers’ digital text competencies are conceptualized and operationalized in relation to inclusive education. There is a need to better understand TDTC in the context of how general education teachers provide academic support and promote student engagement. The previously stated aim, to scope and synthesize empirical research on general education teacher competencies in the intersection of text activities, digital tools and inclusive education, is realized in two research questions:

The initial database search was conducted on May 8, 2023, and a supplementary search was performed on August 14, 2025, to ensure the review’s comprehensiveness and currency. Both searches were conducted in four databases: ERIC, Education Source (previously Education Research Complete), PsycInfo, and Scopus. These databases were selected for their extensive coverage of empirical research in education and psychology, aligning with the study’s focus on teachers’ digital competencies in inclusive education. To reflect the aim of the study, the three intersecting areas of teacher competency were constructed as three thematic search blocks, targeting (1) inclusive education, (2) multimodal text activities, and (3) teacher competencies. Each search block was constructed to include a wide range of studies, combining multiple free-text terms and subject headings, employing truncation and, in one case, a near-clause operator. To identify a range of studies reflecting the broad conceptualization of inclusion adopted in this review, the inclusive education block was constructed with the broadest range, consisting of 18 free-text queries related to scaffolding, classroom adaptations, assistive technology, and differentiation. The multimodal text activities block comprised five broad free-text queries concerning literacy terms appearing within 20 words of the phrasings digital, electronic, or multimodal to ensure the inclusion of studies addressing diverse digitally mediated text practices across educational contexts. The teacher competencies block included 11 free-text queries relating to competency, skills, abilities, and teaching design to capture the variations in which teacher competencies are conceptualized and operationalized across research traditions. While each search block yielded a substantial number of records independently, combining the three blocks using AND operators substantially narrowed the results to studies situated at the intersection. All search strings and an overview of search results by database are provided in Appendix A.

The screening and inclusion of studies followed the guidelines for the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews, PRISMA-ScR (Tricco et al., 2018), to ensure transparency and systematic documentation of the review process. No review protocol was registered prior to the scoping review. However, the search strategy, inclusion criteria, and screening procedures were defined in advance and applied consistently throughout the review process. After database searches, all records were imported into EndNote 20 and Rayyan, where 34 duplicate records were identified and removed prior to screening. The 140 remaining studies were evaluated against seven inclusion criteria. Studies were required to:

Limiting included studies to peer-reviewed empirical studies ensured methodological rigor and relevance, while focusing on general education classrooms and school years 1–10 aligned the material with teachers’ everyday instructional practices in compulsory schooling. Requiring the inclusion of differentiated, scaffolded, or adaptive teaching practices ensured relevance to inclusive education, while the criteria specifying digital tool use and text-based activities reflected the study’s focus on digitally mediated text activities. Together, these criteria enabled a screening of studies situated at the intersection of inclusive education, digital text activities, and teacher competencies.

The 140 studies were screened in two stages. First, titles and abstracts were screened against the predefined inclusion criteria to assess relevance to inclusive education, digital tool use, text-based activities, and teacher competencies within general education settings. At this stage, 103 records were excluded. Second, 37 full-text screenings were conducted independently by two researchers to assess eligibility in relation to the inclusion criteria. Inter-rater agreement at the full-text screening stage was high (84%), with remaining disagreements resolved through discussion with a third researcher. Reasons for exclusion at the full-text stage were documented and are reported in the PRISMA flowchart. The overall process of study identification, screening, and inclusion is summarized in Figure 1.

The 14 included studies were analyzed using Braun and Clarke (2022) reflexive thematic analysis. The analysis followed the steps familiarization, coding, code grouping, initial theme generation, and theme revision. Given the review’s focus on understanding how general education teachers’ digital text competencies are conceptualized and enacted in inclusive education, reflexive thematic analysis was deemed appropriate for capturing both explicit findings and underlying conceptual patterns across the included studies. The researchers first familiarized themselves with the studies through thorough reading and by developing an initial synthesis, which was discussed in relation to their prior understanding of the topic. The studies were then coded in accordance with the research questions, resulting in 39 distinct codes. These codes were subsequently grouped based on shared meanings, forming the basis for the initial themes. The initial themes were then reviewed and refined through comparison with the preliminary synthesis, leading to the final two themes and 7 sub-themes presented in the results. The themes, sub-themes and codes are described in detail and exemplified in Supplementary File 2.

All studies indicate that the use of digital tools in text-based activities creates opportunities for academic support for students. Digital infrastructure, hardware and software, is put forward as an important part of the implementation (e.g., Barone and Wright, 2008; Hall et al., 2015; Molin and Lantz-Andersson, 2016; Wiebe et al., 2022), while teachers’ use of such tools is often constrained by the resources available. Five studies report that the additional support benefits the lowest achieving students the most (Daley et al., 2020; Hall et al., 2015; Hitchcock et al., 2016; Jesson et al., 2018; McDermott and Gormley, 2016). Across the studies, four main sub-themes of potential for academic and social support emerge: increased variation, increased student engagement, potential for additional structure and individualized learning support.

To use digital tools in text-based activities for providing additional support or scaffolding, teachers require a range of digital competencies encompassing skills, abilities, attitudes, and knowledge. Across all the studies examined, teachers used technology to scaffold and support student learning through various digital tools and platforms. The studies reveal substantial variation in teachers’ technical proficiency with both digital hardware and software. Three central aspects of TDTC in relation to inclusion emerge as sub-themes from the material: the ability to create variation in text activities, the ability to scaffold content and tools, and knowledge for making additional preparations in relation to digital technology.

Teachers in the identified studies used digital tools connected to text activities to provide students with both academic and social support. Academic support was offered through increased variation, enhanced structure in lessons and assignments, and individualized learning support. The studies show that academic support tends to be more strongly emphasized than social support or community-building, a pattern also identified by Göransson and Nilholm (2014) and Nilholm (2021).

Accessibility for students with different abilities was most frequently enhanced through variations in modality and content, allowing for a wider range of representations. Similarly, Bray et al. (2024), in a review of technology implementation within Universal Design for Learning (UDL) research, reported a significant emphasis on variation in content representation. Teachers also used digital tools in text-based activities to strengthen the structural support of assignments for all students and to scaffold both traditional and digital literacy. Six studies reported the use of individualized learning support and assistive technologies, such as software that translated texts into another language (c.f. Daley et al., 2020). Although such individualization offers important academic benefits, it has also been problematized by scholars such as Selwyn (2022), who warn that excessive focus on individualized technological support may reduce opportunities for collaboration and weaken students’ sense of community. However, the studies included in this review describe digital tools as increasing student engagement, primarily through collaborative tasks. Shared digital spaces for writing and text design can function as an equalizing factor that enhances accessibility (cf. Morcom and MacCallum, 2012; Persson et al., 2015) and provides scaffolding that enables students to work together, potentially strengthening their sense of belonging within the classroom community. These results indicate that it is not the digital tools themselves, but rather how teachers use them, that influences the social dimensions of inclusion.

The results highlight certain aspects of TDTC, suggesting that teachers need the ability to create variation in how texts are used both productively and receptively by students, the ability to scaffold content using digital tools and scaffold the digital tools themselves, and knowledge about digital software and how to use it within the given subject. To realize these abilities and knowledges as competencies teachers appear to need the technical skills to use specific software, which is the focus of the interventions conducted in included studies (n = 6). Teachers used digital tools to vary textual modalities both receptively and productively, for example shifting between analogue and digital formats or between written and oral modes. This presupposes an ability to analyze the aims and content of lessons in order to design tasks that allow students to read or produce texts through different modalities, an ability central to TDTC. It is noteworthy, however, that verbal text appears to remain as the dominant modality across the studies. For example, Molin and Lantz-Andersson (2016) describe a teacher that do not fully utilize the affordances of digital tools, as screens were treated as digitized paper. This tendency may be influenced by central assessment criteria that continue to prioritize traditional literacy skills (e.g., Wiebe et al., 2022; Yelland, 2018), as also reported in earlier research (e.g., Insulander et al., 2022). Such assessment frameworks may shape teachers’ attitudes toward digital and multimodal texts. As Starkey (2020) notes, teachers’ personal characteristics are a frequently examined feature of digital competency, and Skantz-Åberg et al. (2022) identify teacher attitudes toward technology as an essential component of professional digital competence. Consequently, when assessment criteria privilege traditional literacy, and teacher attitudes influence technology use, it is unsurprising that some teachers continue to use screens as digitised paper (Molin and Lantz-Andersson, 2016) or interactive smartboards as expensive chalkboards (McDermott and Gormley, 2016).

Conceptually, TDTC functions in this review as a relational construct that captures how teachers’ digital, pedagogical, and subject-specific skills, abilities, attitudes and knowledge intersect in practice. Framing teachers’ work through TDTC makes visible how decisions about text design, modality, scaffolding, and tool use are simultaneously pedagogical and supportive, as they shape students’ access to content, opportunities for participation, and modes of expression. In this sense, TDTC operates as a mediating construct between digital tools, literacy and inclusive education, highlighting that inclusive education and student support is not an inherent property of technology, but one that may emerge through teacher competencies.

The teachers in the studies show TDTC as they are reported to use digital tools to scaffold content and scaffold the use of the digital tools themselves (e.g., McDermott and Gormley, 2016). For students, digital tools can function as both supportive and scaffolding resources and as obstacles that require technical skill to overcome. As a response, teachers scaffolded both using the tool and scaffolded the use of the tools themselves. They created digital materials and used platforms to enhance task structure, for example, by sharing collective notes or providing access to texts in multiple formats. As noted in previous reviews (e.g., Skantz-Åberg et al., 2022; Starkey, 2020), teachers combine technical skills and general digital competencies with content knowledge in their classroom practice. Scaffolding through digital tools in text-based activities therefore requires TDTC, that is, understanding both how a tool can support learning and how it can be mastered for classroom use, as well as making informed decisions about which tools to use and how their use should be scaffolded. How teachers make these decisions and how TDTC are enacted in practice are not discussed in the analyzed studies, pointing to a need for further research.

During the search process, the concept of inclusive education was operationalized using 19 free-text queries search terms. This approach was necessary because the term “inclusion” resulted in a substantial number of studies not pertinent to the research questions. The review is limited by the inclusion criteria of English as publication language, which may have led to the exclusion of relevant research conducted and published in other languages. The application of specific inclusion criteria, while ensuring focus and comparability among the selected studies, may also have excluded research with alternative but relevant perspectives on inclusive digital teaching. The variations in educational context are likely to influence inclusive digital practices, but these variations are not systematically compared in this study which may have influenced the results. Despite these limitations, the review provides a viable and valuable synthesis of research at the intersection of inclusive education, digital tools, and literacy. By systematically combining studies across diverse educational contexts, it offers insights into general education teachers’ competencies that remain highly relevant for understanding inclusive practices in increasingly digitalized classrooms.