TY - GEN
T1 - Preparing for Compliance or Critical Participation? Ethics and AI Literacy in Computing Education
AU - Paljor, Yeshi
AU - Proctor, Chris
AU - Xing, Grace Yaxin
AU - Decker, Adrienne
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2026 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
PY - 2026/6/8
Y1 - 2026/6/8
N2 - Artificial intelligence (AI) literacy frameworks increasingly include ethics as a stated responsibility, yet often treat ethical reasoning as supplemental and contingent in practice. This Perspectives paper argues that when ethics is positioned as supplemental or contingent in practice, AI literacy prepares learners for compliance with AI systems rather than for critical, plural, and community-accountable participation in AI-mediated worlds. Drawing on AI literacy scholarship, critical AI ethics, and justice-oriented computing education, the paper reframes ethical reasoning as constitutive of AI literacy itself. It contends that treating ethics as an add-on risks displacing responsibility for AI harms away from institutions and educational structures onto individual learners. By foregrounding ethical reasoning as a core practice of participation, the paper outlines conceptual implications for cultivating more equitable and accountable forms of AI literacy in computing education.
AB - Artificial intelligence (AI) literacy frameworks increasingly include ethics as a stated responsibility, yet often treat ethical reasoning as supplemental and contingent in practice. This Perspectives paper argues that when ethics is positioned as supplemental or contingent in practice, AI literacy prepares learners for compliance with AI systems rather than for critical, plural, and community-accountable participation in AI-mediated worlds. Drawing on AI literacy scholarship, critical AI ethics, and justice-oriented computing education, the paper reframes ethical reasoning as constitutive of AI literacy itself. It contends that treating ethics as an add-on risks displacing responsibility for AI harms away from institutions and educational structures onto individual learners. By foregrounding ethical reasoning as a core practice of participation, the paper outlines conceptual implications for cultivating more equitable and accountable forms of AI literacy in computing education.
KW - AI literacy
KW - computing education
KW - equity
KW - ethical reasoning
KW - ethics-as-practice
KW - justice-oriented CS education
KW - sociotechnical systems
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105042380496
U2 - 10.1145/3796496.3811753
DO - 10.1145/3796496.3811753
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:105042380496
T3 - RESPECT 2026 - Proceedings of the 2026 Conference for Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology
SP - 207
EP - 213
BT - RESPECT 2026 - Proceedings of the 2026 Conference for Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology
PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
T2 - 2026 Conference for Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology, RESPECT 2026
Y2 - 8 June 2026 through 10 June 2026
ER -