Abstract
As artificial intelligence (AI) tools become increasingly normalized in education, critical questions emerge about their impact on human agency, the ethics of their use in teaching, and the epistemic frameworks they promote. This paper explores how the integration of AI in educational contexts risks reconfiguring the roles of teachers and learners, reinforcing dominant systems of knowledge, and contributing to the ongoing colonization of knowledge production and validation. AI systems often reflect the values and assumptions of the contexts in which they are developed—typically privileging efficiency, standardization, and data-driven optimization. These values can conflict with education’s more humanistic and relational aims. When AI mediates key teaching practices such as assessment, feedback, and content delivery, it can constrain educators’ professional judgment and reduce students to data points, narrowing the scope of legitimate knowledge and learning. Moreover, AI systems tend to encode dominant cultural perspectives, marginalizing non-Western, indigenous, and community-based epistemologies. This epistemic exclusion mirrors broader histories of colonialism in knowledge production, where authority is centralized and plural ways of knowing are rendered invisible or invalid. This paper calls for a more ethically grounded and socially just approach to AI in education—one that centers transparency, community accountability, and epistemic diversity. Rather than treating AI as a neutral tool, educators and institutions must engage it as a contested and political technology. By reclaiming agency over how AI is implemented, and insisting on participatory and context-sensitive designs, we can preserve the transformative potential of education as a space of critical inquiry, liberation, and democratic engagement.
Presenters
Mehmet AydenizProfessor of STEM Education, College of Emerging and Collaborative Studies, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Artificial Intelligence, Epistemic Agency, Ethics and Learning, University
