Date
Publisher
arXiv
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is rapidly entering K-12 classrooms worldwide, initiating urgent debates about its potential to either reduce or exacerbate educational inequalities. Drawing on interviews with 30 K-12 teachers across the United States, South Africa, and Taiwan, this study examines how teachers navigate this GenAI tension around educational equalities. We found teachers actively framed GenAI education as an equality-oriented practice: they used it to alleviate pre-existing inequalities while simultaneously working to prevent new inequalities from emerging. Despite these efforts, teachers confronted persistent systemic barriers, i.e., unequal infrastructure, insufficient professional training, and restrictive social norms, that individual initiative alone could not overcome. Teachers thus articulated normative visions for more inclusive GenAI education. By centering teachers' practices, constraints, and future envisions, this study contributes a global account of how GenAI education is being integrated into K-12 contexts and highlights what is required to make its adoption genuinely equal.
Study at a glance
- Question: How do K-12 teachers navigate educational equality when teaching students about generative AI?
- Setting and data: 30 K-12 teachers across the United States, South Africa, and Taiwan (10 per region), interviewed remotely.
- Method: Semi-structured interviews analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis.
Why it matters
Generative AI can either reduce or widen educational inequalities, making it an urgent societal issue. Understanding how frontline teachers navigate these tensions is essential to ensure adoption promotes equality rather than deepening existing divides.
Key findings
- Teachers used generative AI education to mitigate existing resource and literacy divides while enacting practices to guard against new risks like cultural bias, cheating, and overreliance.
- Individual teacher efforts were consistently constrained by structural challenges, including unreliable connectivity, missing digital fluency among students, unlocalized tool designs, and insufficient professional training.
- Teachers confronted restrictive social norms, ranging from organized conservative opposition to community and parental fears rooted in cultural narratives or traditional parenting values.
Summary drafted with AI from the full paper and may contain errors. See the full paper for details.
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