From competency to agency: Teachers’ views of the purposes of AI education

This qualitative study investigates the educational purposes that teachers associate with artificial intelligence (AI) education in primary and early childhood contexts. As AI becomes an increasingly prominent societal and educational phenomenon, teachers are required to determine not only how but also why students are educated about it in the classroom. Drawing on Gert Biesta’s three-dimensional framework of well-rounded educational purpose, which emphasises students’ holistic growth through the domains of qualification, socialisation, and subjectification, this study presents an abductive analysis of interview data from 13 Finnish teachers involved in national AI education development projects. The teachers’ views reflected an exploratory phase of AI education, characterised by a predominant focus on skill development (qualification); a focus that risks narrowing the educational purpose of AI to mere competency cultivation and potentially overlooks students’ critical and personal engagement with the technology. This emphasis also gives rise to possibly divergent interpretations and practices, ranging from an instrumental approach, where education is shaped by externally defined goals such as future employability, to an orientation that foregrounds emancipation and self-expression in the present experience. While the teachers did acknowledge the importance of fostering notions associated with AI agency (subjectification), their approaches lacked robust strategies to support it. This study brings such gaps into sharper focus and models a well-rounded balance where students’ self-determined, informed engagement with AI is placed at the centre of educational efforts in AI education.