Education is regarded as a central instrument for promoting social participation. However, the German education system functions as a mechanism for the reproduction of social inequalities through normalizing processes of selection (El-Mafaalani, 2021; Heinemann & Mecheril, 2023). Schools are not only institutions of knowledge transmission, but also spaces of interaction in which societal power relations and structural conditions become effective and are (re)produced through processes of difference-making (West & Fenstermaker, 1995). Teachers therefore bear responsibility for actively counteracting discrimination based on constructions of difference (Antidiskriminierungsstelle des Bundes, 2018). Reflexive knowledge of societal power relations as well as of processes of privileging and discrimination constitutes a prerequisite (Rendtorff, 2021). In the absence of such knowledge, school-based selection practices may particularly affect students with a migration background or from low-income families (Sirin, 2005; El-Mafaalani, 2012). Teacher-led performance-based differentiation does not occur exclusively along the meritocratic principle, but also on the basis of intersectional categories of difference such as gender, race, class, and disability (Giesinger, 2007). Structural inequalities are further intensified through unequal treatment based on inequalities (El-Mafaalani, 2021).  Educational inequalities are also reproduced in a digitalized society, even though reflexive and problematizing knowledge of the underlying structural injustices is increasing (Heinz, 2023). For Germany, results from the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) 2018 show that social background influences unequal prerequisites for digital competence. Students from families with low cultural capital exhibit lower levels of computer- and information-related competencies than those from families with high cultural capital (Eickelmann et al., 2019). Van de Werfhorst et al. (2022), also analyzing ICILS 2018 data, add that the divide in students’ digital competencies is additionally shaped by gender and migration background. According to Lüring et al. (2022), school-based learning opportunities are used less extensively by children from families with a migration background and from low-income households, among other factors. These patterns are associated with stereotypical and deficit-oriented attitudes by teachers (ibid.). In a case study conducted in three Californian middle schools, Rafalow (2020) identified differing evaluations of and approaches to students’ digital skills depending on ethnicity and social class. Only teachers at a school with a predominantly white, high-income student population transformed digital competencies into educational capital. Rafalow conceptualizes teachers as gatekeepers of students’ potential in dealing with technologies (ibid.). For Europe, especially Germany, systematic reconstructive investigations of these interrelations are still lacking. The present project addresses this desideratum. Its epistemic interest is directed toward inequality-relevant knowledge held by teachers in the context of digitalized teaching. Specifically, the study investigates how such knowledge is shaped by, embedded in, and expressed through teachers’ professional orientations in digitally mediated classroom practices. Inequality-relevant knowledge comprises both knowledge of inequality and inequality-critical knowledge. Knowledge of inequality refers to socially acquired and embodied knowledge that can be explicated in norms (Güllü, 2025). Inequality-critical knowledge may take the form of acquired knowledge and consolidate into problematizing this embodied societal knowledge. On an implicit level, both forms of knowledge may structure practices of action and speech (ibid.). In the tradition of praxeological sociology of knowledge, this distinction does not hinge on the factual correctness or normative desirability of the knowledge in question. Rather, the focus lies on reconstructing how it is produced in practice (Bohnsack, 2021). The study is guided by the following research questions: (1) Which inequality-relevant knowledge do teachers display when speaking about their digitalized teaching practices? (2) Which categories of difference are rendered relevant by teachers in this context? Taken together, these questions reflect an open and exploratory approach to the forms of knowledge under investigation.The project contributes to basic research in the field of inequality-sensitive professionalization.

The data set comprises seven semi-structured interviews with narrative elements (Helfferich, 2011) conducted with teachers at secondary schools in North Rhine–Westphalia, Germany. The sampling strategy aims at achieving a broad variation of perspectives, which was initially guided by an external framing through the inclusion of the different school types grammar school (Gymnasium), intermediate secondary school (Realschule), and lower secondary school (Hauptschule) and was subsequently expanded inductively by following the approach of theoretical sampling within these school types (Glaser & Strauss, 1998/1967). An inclusion criterion was the regular use of digital media, particularly tablets and laptops, in teaching practice. The sample includes four interviews with teachers from grammar schools, one interview with a teacher from an intermediate secondary school, and two interviews with teachers working at lower secondary schools. The analysis is conducted using the documentary method (Bohnsack, 2018; Nohl, 2017). The documentary method is an interpretative qualitative approach that aims at reconstructing implicit, practical knowledge that structures practices and interactions. Rather than focusing on explicit statements or intentions of participants, the documentary method analytically distinguishes between communicative meaning and documentary meaning (Mannheim, 1980), that is, the underlying orientation frameworks through which reality is produced. Methodologically, the documentary method follows a comparative and sequential logic of interpretation, enabling the reconstruction of shared orientations across cases and the development of types (Bohnsack, 2021). In this research, the documentary method is employed to reconstruct teacher orientations. The focus is not on observing teaching practice itself, but on identifying the practical knowledge underlying teachers’ accounts of their professional action. Through narrative passages, descriptions, and modes of argumentation in the interviews, teachers implicitly refer to habitualized ways of perceiving students, interpreting difference, and handling inequality-related situations in a digitalized classroom setting. The method enables the analysis of orientation frameworks toward educational inequality that are not articulated explicitly but become visible in how teachers recount and structure their experiences. This interpretative approach is central to addressing the research question, as it allows for the systematic analysis of how educational inequalities are made meaningful and dealt with from the perspective of teachers’ professional experience.

At a descriptive level, a first comparison of the interviews across school types reveals variation in the use of digital devices in teaching. Teachers at grammar schools describe a norm of parent-financed tablets, with new devices acquired in cases of damage or loss. By contrast, the intermediate secondary school receives tablets through the state-funded Digital Pact of North Rhine-Westphalia. While this arrangement ensures access to digital devices, it also creates administrative dependence on the state, often leading to delays. One teacher reported temporarily suspending tablet use to ensure that all students could participate equally in lessons. Teachers at lower secondary schools also reported having digital devices provided. Unlike the teachers at grammar schools or the intermediate secondary school, they highlighted the lack of professional development opportunities and the absence of financial resources to acquire suitable software. Moreover, students’ digital competencies were generally limited so that digitalized lessons relied almost exclusively on word-processing programs. Moving beyond descriptive comparison, an interpretive analysis of three interviews with teachers at grammar schools reveals that differing levels of students’ (digital) competencies are explicitly negotiated along distinct lines of difference, particularly social background, gender, and race. As part of the reflecting interpretation, an initial orientation becomes visible in one case, where intergroup differences are primarily framed along the line of gender and inequality is understood as individually and naturalistically attributed to students. In contrast, another teacher addresses the same stimulus by focusing on social background and conceptualizing inequality as rooted in familial and cultural orientations. The next analytical step examines whether such orientations recur across additional interview passages and can therefore be reconstructed as case-internal orientation patterns, which will subsequently be contrasted across cases. Through the comparative analysis of cases, types are identified that capture collective orientations, which manifest in and structure habitualized practices.

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