Date
Publisher
arXiv
Although generative AI is being deployed into classrooms with promises of aiding teachers, educators caution that these tools can have unintended pedagogical repercussions, including cultural misrepresentation and bias. These concerns are heightened in low-resource language and Indigenous education settings, where AI systems frequently underperform. We investigate these challenges in Hawai`i, where public schools operate under a statewide mandate to integrate Hawaiian language and culture into education. Through four co-design workshops with 22 public school educators, we surfaced concerns about using generative AI in educational settings, particularly around cultural misrepresentation, and corresponding designs for auditing tools that address these issues. We find that educators envision tools grounded in specific Hawaiian cultural values and practices, such as tracing the genealogy of knowledge in source materials. Building on these insights, we conceptualize AI auditing as a community-oriented process rather than the work of isolated individuals, and discuss implications for designing auditing tools.
Study at a glance
- Question: What cultural harms do educators encounter in generative AI, and how do they design tools to audit them?
- Setting and data: Two public elementary schools in O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, March 2025, 22 public school educators.
- Method: Four co-design workshops with rapid prototyping, storyboarding, and post-workshop surveys; reflexive thematic analysis.
Why it matters
Generative AI can cause cultural misrepresentation and bias, particularly in low-resource and Indigenous education settings where public schools must integrate local culture. However, educators often lack the time, tools, or training to audit AI-generated content.
Key findings
- Half of participating educators reported previously encountering bias in generative AI outputs, voicing concerns over hallucinations, superficial representation, dominant Western narratives, omitted diversity, and treating Hawaiian culture as historical.
- Educators prioritized auditing tools that trace the genealogy and lineage of source authors, visualize represented versus omitted perspectives, and flag problematic outputs for classroom and student reflection.
- Educators viewed auditing tools as dual-purpose systems that should both detect cultural misrepresentations and serve as pedagogical aids to develop students' critical thinking skills.
Summary drafted with AI from the full paper and may contain errors. See the full paper for details.
What is the application?
Who is the user?
Study design
