Conference Program

A critical approach to AI literacy in adult learning and education (ALE) cannot overlook the fact that Generative AI (GenAI), the most commonly used tool for non-AI experts (Zhou et al., 2026), enters educational environments as a socio-technical assemblage (Lindgren, 2023). As such, GenAI systems encapsulate the political, epistemic, and socio-cultural perspectives of those who own, design, and commercialize AI systems, implying dominant epistemologies and amplifying asymmetrical power relations when generating content (Campolo & Crawford, 2020; Suchman, 2023).

In ALE environments, and particularly in those characterised by superdiversity (Pasta & Zoletto, 2023), in-service professional development in AI literacy must address reproduction and amplification of discriminatory practices in AI-generated content, such as the omission, subordination, and sterotyping of students’ differences in educational content and materials (Shieh et al., 2024). Recent research (Selwyn et al., 2025) highlights teachers’ practices of remixing or rejecting AI-generated content that mismatches with pedagogical and ethical expectations. Such practices, which can be defined postdigital (Jandrić et al., 2018) as they take place somewhere between online and offline, can also be considered as practices of repairing GenAI malfunctions. Literature on repair and maintenance (Denis & Pontille, 2023) frames human interaction with technology as potentially transformative, given that agency can be recognised to users when they engage with technology (and its malfunctions) by reconfiguring its potential uses and the values embedded in its original design (Steinert, 2024).

Building on sociomaterial approaches in ALE (Fenwick & Edwards, 2013), this contribution presents the initial findings form a participatory action research (Bove, 2019; Medrado & Verdegem, 2024) investigating in-service teachers’ practices with GenAI in Adult Education Centres in Italy (CPIAs) throguh the explicitation (Vermersch, 2005) of teachers’ postdigital practices. The thematic analysis (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006) of the qualitative data generated in preparation of and during the action research provides insights into teachers professional considerations and strategies when interacting with GenAI regarding the design and personalisation of learning materials, and the mitigation of bias in AI-generated content.

Following the maintenance perspective, such postdigital practices of teachers interacting with GenAI tools can be interpreted as practices of care (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017) regarding their educational environments, according to what teachers may consider good education (Biesta, 2015) for adult students with diverse migratory and educational backgrounds. In this sense, teachers’ repairs of GenAI can be seen as examples of siutated AI literacy, a site of professional agency and epistemic negotiation of dominant AI-generated narratives through critical maintenance of GenAI in superdiverse adult education.