INCLUSIVE STORYTELLING: DIVERSITY, REPRESENTATION, AND ACCESSIBILITY

Abstract

Storytelling in education was discussed as a pedagogical practice with potential to mediate learning, emphasizing Digital Storytelling and its connection to inclusion. The research problem sought to understand how storytelling, especially in its digital form, could be used as an inclusive pedagogical strategy considering diversity, representation, and accessibility to support the participation of students with special educational needs. The general objective was to analyze storytelling in education, focusing on Digital Storytelling, by systematizing its pedagogical contributions and its possibilities as an inclusive practice. The methodology adopted was bibliographic research, based on the analysis of selected studies addressing storytelling in early childhood education, in vocational and technological education, the use of mobile devices, and intergenerational digital narrative experiences. In the development, it was observed that storytelling organized content into meaningful sequences and fostered engagement and authorship, while Digital Storytelling expanded multimodality and, when planned, reduced participation barriers. It was also found that inclusion depended on responsible narrative choices, accessibility resources, and didactic adaptations integrated into planning. In the final considerations, it was concluded that storytelling could be understood as an inclusive strategy when it articulated pedagogical intentionality, diversity, representation, and accessibility, although empirical studies were indicated as necessary to deepen evidence in real contexts.