Conference Program

In recent years, socio-educational systems have increasingly faced the challenge of integrating emerging technologies while preserving the relational and democratic foundations of educational work. At the same time, local partnerships among schools, social services, and community organizations are becoming central to addressing complex global challenges. Within this perspective, learning communities represent a key framework for fostering collective knowledge production, democratic participation, and transformative educational practices.

This contribution presents preliminary findings and theoretical reflections emerging from the TEACH-AI (Transformative Educational Approaches for Civic and Human-centred AI) research project, conducted by the CREDDI research group at eCampus University (Adamoli et al., 2026). The project investigates how generative artificial intelligence is perceived, understood, and potentially integrated within Italian socio-educational services, involving professionals from social cooperatives and community-based organizations. Through a participatory research design combining survey research and action-oriented methodologies, the project aims to analyse current practices and to support the co-development of strategies for a responsible and human-centred integration of AI in educational contexts.

The empirical phase of the research involved over 400 workers from social cooperatives distributed across the Italian territory. Data were collected through the PAIR (Participatory AI for Inclusive Relationships) questionnaire (Rondonotti & Emanuel, in press), designed to investigate three key analytical dimensions: capability, referring to professionals’ competences to use AI meaningfully; affordance-in-practice, addressing the situated ways in which technological possibilities are activated within everyday work; and sentiment, capturing the emotional and socio-cultural perceptions associated with AI adoption.

The results highlight an ambivalent relationship between socio-educational professionals and generative AI. On the one hand, AI is recognized as a potential resource for accessing information, supporting problem solving, and optimizing administrative tasks. On the other hand, participants express concerns about the possible weakening of educational relationships, risks related to data privacy, and the standardization of complex socio-educational processes. This tension reveals a broader challenge for learning communities: how to harness technological affordances without compromising the relational, contextual, and ethical dimensions that characterize educational care (Fiorucci & Bevilacqua, 2024).

From the perspective of learning communities, the TEACH-AI project proposes a framework in which technological innovation is embedded within participatory governance processes involving educators and organizations. By adopting action research and collaborative design practices, the project aims to support collective learning processes that enable professionals to critically interpret and shape the role of AI in their contexts. In this sense, learning communities become spaces where technological, pedagogical, and ethical dimensions intersect, allowing local actors to co-construct responses to global transformations (Garkisch & Goldkind, 2025).