Creative and inclusive teaching practices in multigrade schools. An ethnographic study on the use of digital media

• This article provides an important resource for thinking about multigrade and miltilevel classrooms and inclusion. • The article demonstrates how teachers in multigrade schools are creative and resourceful and how they develop school environments that provide meaningful opportunities for learning. • Key points in the article concern the creative and inclusive teaching practices and limitations from education structures. • These multigrade classrooms have a potential for providing inclusive educational services and good learning opportunities of better quality for everyone. This article analyses how teachers in multigrade classrooms challenge the culture of homogenisation in teaching through inclusive and creative practices facilitated by digital media. Specifically, it presents the results of a multisite ethnographic study conducted in five rural multigrade schools, all participating in a broader project (PID2020–112880RB- I00) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. This project focuses on investigating creative and inclusive teaching practices in complex schools due to a high percentage of migrant population or because they are in remote environments across Spain. The study highlights practices that promote student participation and learning based on their needs and life experiences, reflecting teachers’ commitment to an inclusive teaching approach. Teachers acknowledge the need to address students’ lives, interests and abilities, while encouraging interactions with peers and the community to support learning in multigrade classrooms. However, these teachers also identify barriers to inclusion arising from an education system that homogenises groups of children through organizing schools by age related grade and prescribes specific curricula for each grade. These constraints seem to influence the reproduction of educational practices that overlook students’ lives.