Conference Program

The current geopolitical disorder is increasingly shaped by the centrality of artificial intelligence, datafication, and algorithmic governance systems that influence public debate, democratic participation, and educational processes. In this context, the classical relationship between democracy and education, as formulated by John Dewey, appears deeply undermined by the power of digital platforms, economic and financial oligarchies, and the systematic spread of disinformation. These dynamics negatively affect critical thinking, epistemic responsibility, and the conditions for exercising conscious democratic citizenship. (Dewey, 1916; Floridi, 2019)

This paper argues that AI Literacy should be conceived as a pedagogical and civic paradigm capable of reconstructing the relationship between democracy and education, recognizing the educational pact of shared responsibility as a strategic device for addressing the complexity of the contemporary digital ecosystem. AI Literacy is not understood as a technical competence, but as an integrated educational framework aimed at fostering critical awareness, ethical reflexivity, and social responsibility through an educational alliance involving schools, universities, families, and local communities. (Rivoltella & Rossi, 2019; UNESCO, 2023)

Within this perspective, artificial intelligence is interpreted not only as an object of learning, but as a cultural and political environment that structures access to knowledge, decision-making processes, and forms of participation. The educational pact of shared responsibility therefore assumes a generative pedagogical function, configuring itself as a space of mediation between educational institutions and civil society, oriented toward the construction of democratic, inclusive, and participatory digital citizenship. (Floridi, 2019; Dewey, 1916)

Drawing on pedagogy, special education, and didactics, the paper analyzes the role of schools and universities as democratic laboratories in which students and teachers can develop critical competencies to interpret algorithmic systems, recognize the mechanisms of disinformation, and act responsibly within the digital public sphere. Particular attention is devoted to the risks of educational and digital inequality, highlighting how the lack of AI-related competencies may intensify forms of digital educational poverty and social marginalization. (Rivoltella & Rossi, 2019; UNESCO, 2023)

The contribution argues that a renewed curriculum for democratic citizenship must be based on a fruitful hybridization of education, didactics, and artificial intelligence, promoting critical thinking, conscious participation, and an ethics of shared responsibility. Only through collectively grounded educational approaches can the ideology of disinformation be countered and algorithmic systems oriented toward social cohesion, sustainability, and peace in a global society marked by increasing instability. (Dewey, 1916; UNESCO, 2023)