Designing for plurality: UDL, epistemic justice, and practices of care in post-digital educational contexts

This article proposes a reinterpretation of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a design grammar of plurality in post-digital educational contexts, articulating it through three interconnected theoretical shifts. The first moves UDL from the plane of accessibility to that of epistemic recognition, bringing it into dialogue with the notion of epistemic justice in its testimonial and hermeneutical dimensions. The second reinterprets care not as a moral disposition of the individual teacher, but as the institutional infrastructure of ordinary pedagogical mediations. The third introduces a criterion of design vigilance with respect to

assumed as privileged evidence of learning. Epistemic justice, situated epistemologies, ethics of care, and post-digital studies are thus brought into relation to construct an integrated conceptual framework, orientated towards curricular, evaluative, and organisational justice. In its final section, the article discusses implications for instructional design and teacher education, identifying possible directions for future empirical research.

Keywords: Universal Design for Learning;epistemic justice;ethics of care;instructional design;post-digital education

Antonio Balestra, Progettare per la pluralità: UDL, giustizia epistemica e pratiche di cura nei contesti educativi post-digitali in "EDUCATION SCIENCES AND SOCIETY" 1/2026, pp 286-297, DOI: 10.3280/ess1-2026oa22581