Call for the Special Issue: "Digital Education in Teacher Education: Inclusive and Special Educational Perspectives"

2025-06-16

Digital transformations are rapidly changing educational processes. While digital competencies are recognized as key to societal participation, their promotion in education is often insufficient (Fraillon, 2024). In particular, young people with special educational needs (SEN) still face limited opportunities to acquire digital competencies in the school context (Starks & Reich, 2023). This is attributed – in addition to the lack of accessible digital educational resources and equitable participation in digital learning processes – to the marginal integration of digital competence development in university-based teacher education (Fernández-Cerero et al., 2023).

To ensure equitable and inclusive education (OECD, 2023), a realignment of teacher education at universities is necessary. Institution for teacher education require innovative higher education didactic concepts to effectively prepare future teachers of all disciplines for barrier-free, collaborative, and reflective teaching and learning with digital media in schools. Teacher education students must be empowered to identify both technical and (subject-specific) didactic barriers and develop a critically reflective attitude toward digital educational media, in alignment with differentiated media-didactic, academic, and special education learning objectives. This calls for theoretical and practice-oriented, iterative, and interdisciplinary teaching and learning formats that place Open Educational Resources (OER) at the forefront (e.g., Jungjohann, 2024).

Against this background, this special issue gathers current contributions that address digital education for future teachers in higher education, with a particular focus on students with disabilities and SEN. It is expected that the contributions will provide an in-depth engagement of disability-specific requirements in the context of teaching. Topics include:

  • Higher education didactic concepts and teaching materials for promoting digital competencies of teacher education students, with a focus on SEN-related aspects, and disability-specific requirements
  • Didactic models for critical, accessible, and inclusive media education for teacher education students
  • Empirical findings on the effectiveness of higher education didactics concepts, models, and interventions for teacher education students
  • Empirical findings and best practice examples for the development, implemetation, and reuse of Open Educational Resources (OER) in teacher education

The types of contributions and manuscript requirements align with the guidelines of the journal HLZ, with a focus on empirical original contributions and higher education didactics contributions  (Link). In HLZ, articles can be complemented with so-called online supplements, which are published together with the article at the end of the editorial process. These supplements are primarily intended for providing additional teaching-related materials, such as detailed descriptions of individual seminar sessions or reusable teaching concepts. However, technical restrictions regarding file size and format apply and must be clarified with the editors on a case-by-case basis. All essential and relevant information required for comprehension and scholarly transparency should be included in the main manuscript wherever possible.

Preliminary Timeline

  • 15.08.2025: Submussion Deadline for Abstracts
  • 30.09.2025: Feedback on Abstracts
  • 02.02.2026: Submussion Deadline for Manuscripts
  • 10.04.206: 2-3 Peer Reviews & Editor Feedback
  • 08.05.2026: Submission of Revisions
  • 10.07.2026: Second Review Cycle
  • 31.08.2026: Final Manuscript Submission
  • 10/2026: Publication of the Special Issue

Please submit your abstracts (max. 500 words) along with author information for all contributors to: themenheft.hlz.reha@tu-dortmund.de

If any questions arise, feel free to contact the guest editors directly.

Please note that all submitted manuscripts will undergo a peer-review process. Final acceptance for the special issue will be based on the result of this review process.

 

Literature

Fernández-Cerero, J., Montenegro-Rueda, M. & Fernández-Batanero, J. M. (2023). Impact of University Teachers' Technological Training on Educational Inclusion and Quality of Life of Students with Disabilities: A Systematic Review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 20(3). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032576

Fraillon, J. (Hrsg.). (2024). An international perspective on digital literacy: Results from ICILS. 2023. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). https://www.iea.nl/sites/default/files/2024-11/ICILS_2023_International_Report_0.pdf

Jungjohann, J. (2024). Digitale Bildung aus inklusiver und sonderpädagogischer Perspektive. https://doi.org/10.17877/DE290R-24289

OECD. (2023). OECD Digital Education Outlook 2023: Towards an Effective Digital Education Ecosystem. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/c74f03de-en

Starks, A. C. & Reich, S. M. (2023). “What about special ed?“: Barriers and enablers for teaching with technology in special education. Computers & Education, 193, 104665. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2022.104665