The impact of recent advances in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) is a topic on the agenda of the scientific community, in general, and education, in particular. Moreover, the economic interests surrounding it are significant (Wang et al., 2024). Nevertheless, scientific research has highlighted various benefits of the implementation of AI in education (AIED). Those benefits are observed within the context of school administration, the teaching process, and the learning environment (Andersen et al., 2022; Hopcan et al., 2023; Popenici & Kerr, 2017; Qu et al., 2022; Reiss, 2021; Walter, 2024). However, some gaps have already been pointed out in the literature. For example, Qu et al. (2022) state that is necessary to increase the connection between AI and education and, in this same line, Hopcan et al. (2023) note that the educational dimension of the analysis is frequently forgotten to the detriment of more technical approaches. In other words, sometimes it might be noticed a certain instrumentalization in the analysis regarding AIED. Finally, Wang et al. (2024) note that there is a clear lack of use of theories in the studies regarding AIED.

In this context, the impacts of AIED are already evident, with AI starting to revolutionize modern education, particularly regarding generative AI, but their potential reach is unpredictable (Wang et al., 2024). However, within the framework of these impacts, AI poses several challenges to the field of education. For example, AI poses challenges regarding knowledge, and these challenges become even more evident when we analyze them from an educational perspective. AIED can impact how young people access and construct knowledge, as well as the trust relationships inherent in these processes (whether they are in a subject-object or subject-subject logic) (Harari, 2024). Knowledge has been strongly influenced by market logics, with the economic field of influence framing the symbolic field (Bernstein, 2000; Hordern, 2019). With the advances of AIED, the influence of the economic field in relation to knowledge may become even more evident, with technological giants striving in the political arena (and influencing the symbolic field of influence), and with states struggling not to be left behind in the race for the promised future (Gray, 2020; Qu et al., 2022). Furthermore, AI poses challenges regarding the pedagogical process and the possibilities for effective inclusion. Finally, the role of teachers and students during the curricular and pedagogical process may also undergo changes due to AI.

In this paper, we seek to instigate the educational dimension of the scientific discussion related to AIED, addressing some challenges listed above, in addition to promoting a theory-based approach that has implications regarding curricular and pedagogical practice. We advocate a transformational approach (Sternberg, 2020) to AIED, which perceives AI as a means rather than an end, in order to ensure that it can function as an enabler of human agency rather than a pedagogical agent. Thus, we suggest that this transformational approach can be guaranteed through commitment to the pedagogic rights proposed by Bernstein (2000) – enhancement, inclusion, and participation. So, we develop a conceptual approach to propose the mobilization of pedagogic rights as a means of guaranteeing a socially fair use of AIED within the framework of a transformational vision of school education. In this context, we seek to analyze how AI can facilitate the relationship between knowledge and knowers, between curriculum and pedagogy, and between agents and tools, perceiving it as a valuable tool to promote agency and not as an agent.

We present a theoretical/conceptual proposal, which can impact the curricular and pedagogical practice, and inform the analysis regarding the socially fair use of AIED.

AI brings many potential gains to education. However, every gain brings with it some risks. It is within the framework of these potential gains and risks, which we see as challenges, that we design our approach. In this sense, we present some AI-driven challenges that we consider pressing and pertinent and seek to respond to them within the framework of pedagogic rights. For each of the six suggested challenges, we present a possible response within the framework of one of Bernsteinian pedagogic rights. The first two challenges address a curricular dimension, and we approach them within the framework of the right to enhancement. Here, we problematize the relationship between knowledge and knowers, proposing a focus on what we define as powerful thinking - a theoretical proposal that we develop on a dialectical model of reasoning, which can ensure an effective relationship between knowers/students and the object of knowledge, promoting epistemic insights (Blackie & Luckett, 2024); and we propose a curriculum design and development based on the concepts of powerful knowledge (although a more comprehensive notion of it (Blackie & Luckett, 2024; Schudel, 2024)) and powerful thinking, capable of transforming, using Schudel’s grammar (2024), potentially powerful knowledge into kinetically powerful knowledge. The next two challenges address a pedagogical dimension, and we approach them within the framework of the right to inclusion. Here, we reflect on the opportunities and risks that AI can bring to pedagogical practice and direct our analysis to the possibilities of personalization/individualization and pluralization of the pedagogical process. Furthermore, these are the main educational implications identified by Gardner (1999), in order to ensure inclusion and equity in terms of opportunities for success for all students. In this framework, we mobilize theories that look broadly at human intellectual capabilities (such as Gardner's (1983/2011) theory of multiple intelligences or Sternberg's (1999) triarchic theory of intelligence) and return to the dialectic of powerful thinking, underlining the need to communicate disciplinary school knowledge with the students' everyday knowledge. Finally, we address two other challenges regarding the role of the main actors of the pedagogical process (students and teachers), within the framework of the right to participation. Here, we address how students can increase their possibilities of agency with AI and avoid the risk of AI itself functioning as an agent in the pedagogical process, and we reflect on the dual role of teachers in this context: agents and facilitators of students’ agency.

We reflect on how, through curriculum (powerful design and empowering development), pedagogy (inclusive, situated, intentional, and diverse but always connected with curriculum, thus connecting knowers to knowledge) and the (conscious, effective, and empowering) action of students and teachers, the commitment to pedagogic rights can serve to respond to the challenges triggered by AIED. This commitment can promote a transformational education of young people and enhance their personal, intellectual, social, cultural and civic flourishing. We hope that our proposal can pave the way for a practical implementation of these propositions, as well as for critical analyses of the educational reality considering these assumptions. It will exist pressure to apply AIED, and the competition between states (and corporations) to take the front line in this journey will be intense (Qu et al., 2022). In this sense, equal access remains a pressing concern. Hence, in addition to the suggested conditions and implications, the issue of (re)distribution (Fraser, 2005) and access to resources cannot be ignored. AI must be seen and used as a (valuable) tool in education, not humans (students) be seen as a tool for AI (as in the more dystopic predictions) or for the interests of corporations that influence education, like they are already seen in a certain way with the marketisation of the academic system (Blackie & Luckett, 2024). A commitment to pedagogic rights may ensure it. The competition within the context of the economic and symbolic fields of influence of the pedagogic device will be strong, with many interests and players in play; many with virtuous proposes (some probably not). Thus, it is urgent to address AIED within an educational vein, with curriculum and pedagogy at the center of the debate. We came across a powerful tool; it is time to make it a true instrument of human agency.

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