M.06. Facing AI Challenges in a Democratic and Socio-Constructivist Perspective: Imaginaries, Agency and Explorative Experiences with a Reggio Emilia-Inspired Approach
Artificial Intelligence is becoming a pervasive tool in everyday lives, shaping how people learn, communicate, and understand the world. Yet children and young people often encounter AI systems without adequate conceptual, ethical, or critical equipment to recognize their mechanisms, constraints, and socio-political implications.
This panel investigates how children and youngsters conceptualize AI and intelligence, how they imagine processes such as machine “learning”, and how they understand the human. We also examine the possible trust infrastructure for responsible use of AI, reflecting on ethical issues in education and governance instruments. These early representations are crucial for democratic learning, influencing emerging forms of civic participation, trust, and agency in digital societies.
From a REA perspective, drawing on children’s narratives, questions, embodied explorations, and emotional responses, the panel examines how imaginaries of AI can become generative spaces for ethical reflection, critical awareness, and informed engagement. Contributions can address pedagogical interventions, AI literacy activities and experimental practices that integrate the body, emotions, arts, and curricular disciplines to foster reflective and responsible interactions with AI.
The panel particularly welcomes contributions that articulate how education can cultivate conscious use of AI, ethical discernment, and the creative exploration of the possibilities fostered by AI. Through investigation, reflection, and co-construction of learning, young people can move from passive consumption into an opportunity for agency, creativity, and democratic participation.
By bringing together researchers, educators, and practitioners, the panel aims to promote awareness, democratic participation, and resilience and to equip young people with the capacity to navigate AI-mediated worlds.