Along with digital development, new possibilities for communicating have emerged. The younger generation has adopted these new possibilities to a great extent. In order to be able to utilise the opportunities offered by digital tools when writing, access to digital tools is essential. Schools need to develop a writing education that meets students' contemporary writing needs. In considering this, it is important to learn more about the gains and the losses in digital writing. The purpose of this study was to understand and discuss the relation between students' digital access, students' perceived affordances with digital writing, and student agency. The methods used were a statistical survey and qualitative interviews. Six classes from five different schools located in a municipality in the middle of Sweden were chosen as an informant group. The results indicate that the most common condition concerning students' digital access was that students shared digital tools for writing with their families. An analysis of affordances was carried out to interpret the empirical findings from the qualitative data. Affordances that emerged were: write-ability, edit-ability, story-telling ability and accessibility. In addition, the ways in which digital access and the affordances perceived can be related to student agency were analysed. The main conclusion was that given the conditions of digital access and opportunities to practice, the affordances of digital writing can increase student agency. In turn, this suggests that writing education that focuses on student agency can contribute to equity in writing activities.

This paper addresses how students design multimodal digital text when making digital stories in school. Drawing on the perspective of ‘multiliteracies’, multimodal analysis of video recordings was used to understand the data. Findings revealed that (a) multimodal digital text making requires particular digital and modal text‐making skills and knowledge, such as knowledge of photography, film, film editing, image searching, and audio recording; (b) students' prior knowledge was crucial for mastering the digital and modal affordances offered when making digital stories; and (c) making multimodal digital texts in school offers increased opportunities for students to perform and succeed in text making. These findings point to the need for schools to offer education that makes it possible for all students to gain knowledge and master skills needed for contemporary text making. Such knowledge goes beyond skills and practices needed when making paper‐based text, and borders on other disciplines such as art and technology. What is already known about this topic Text making in the 21st century entails working in various modes, such as images, writing, and video, and is often performed with digital resources. Today's students must be competent in designing multimodal texts that are commonly associated with digital technology and multimedia. Students' modal choices when creating digital texts are influenced by prior experiences and knowledge of text‐making practices obtained outside school. What this paper adds This paper provides examples of the differing prerequisites of students designing a digital multimodal story. This paper offers insights into the particular digital and modal text‐making skills and knowledge necessary for students to become competent text makers. Multimodal digital texts activities in school offers increased opportunities for students to perform and succeed in text making. Implications for practice and/or policy The results of this study have implications for literacy practices as well what is included in the literacy curriculum. This study provides implications for education that intends to reduce inequalities in students' prerequisites concerning making digital multimodal texts, and examines the text‐making experiences, knowledge, and skills students already possess upon entering the classroom. Classroom‐based instruction and opportunities for digital creation can bridge the gap between student's informal text‐making activities and formal text‐making activities at school and help to close the digital divide among students.

The young generation are both consumers and producers of digital multimodal texts and can thus be seen as cocreators of the culture and the contexts that they are part of. Learning more about how students create multimodal texts and what students' texts are about can extend the understanding of contemporary meaning making. This study examines 23 Swedish fifth-grade students' multimodal digital stories in a school context. The aim of this research was to understand the meaning that the students made in their digital narratives and to describe how they made that meaning. This study's multimodal textual analysis is based on the multiliteracies perspective. The results indicate that all of the students, to varying degrees, took advantage of the available digital and modal resources. Some students chose writing as their sole mode, but others used all of the available resources. Furthermore, the results revealed that students' popular culture experiences influenced many of their texts, which can indicate that popular culture texts are used as resources for making meaning about the world.

The development of positive attitudes towards immigrants among students can be addressed at the individual level through their empathic abilities and at the school or classroom level, where the classroom climate plays an important role.In the present study, we have taken a closer look into the relationship between attitudes towards immigrants, two components of empathy (perspective taking, empathic concern), quality of student-teacher relations (both positiveand negative) and inclusive classroom climate(presented as perceived intercultural sensitivity of teachers) in a sample of 814 8th-grade students in three EU countries (Slovenia, Croatia, and Sweden). The findings showonlyempathy (especially perspective taking) was associated with better attitudes towards immigrantsin all three countries. Additionally, in two out of three countries, the importance of the relationship with teachers and inclusiveclassroomclimate was important as well. The results are discussed in the light of guidelines for school practice.