AI in Early Childhood Education and Culture

Convenors

Nicole Thompson, Southern Cross University, Australia

Ahmet Sami Konca, United Arab Emirates University

Aims

Our main aim is to facilitate a dialogue among professionals on how AI is currently shaping the fields of education and culture, particularly with regard to young children and their families. We will engage in critical reflection on this topic, share experiences and interesting initiatives currently underway internationally, invite experts to discuss specific issues, and share high-quality resources on the subject.

Rationale Please set out a brief rationale for the relevance and importance of the theme to the field and show its complementariness to the aims of EECERA

AI is shaping radically a new reality in educational and cultural institutions at both global and local levels. This has a particularly significant impact on professionals in the fields of education and culture, as well as on the children they work with every day. There is a need for discussion groups, expert voices, resources, approaches and reliable, research-based tools to guide their work in a direction that is safer, more ethical, participatory, inclusive, democratic and more environmentally just.

First year Please give brief bullet point of the ideas for proposed initial activities or actions that the SIG intends to undertake in its first year.

It is proposed that an online meeting be held with the group approximately every three months. The meetings will last approximately 60 minutes. The first 30 minutes will consist of lightning presentations by SIG members on current research, practice, policy and so on. The following 30 minutes will be devoted to a discussion of the presentations, and the final 10 minutes will be spent on the agenda, upcoming meetings, the newsletter and so on.

During the year, the aim is to address a number of specific topics, as detailed below:

How children create and learn with and without AI. Some main implications: We aim to analyze the differences in the creative process followed by stakeholders when they do not use any AI software, when they use some, and when they use only AI. We examine the similarities and differences between these approaches and, above all, how this affects the perceptions of children and families regarding their contribution, their concept of authorship, and their ability to control the process as a whole.

Children’s Self-Image expression and Self-Esteem and AI. One of the central aspects of this group is to examine the suitability of AI as a tool for expressing self-image and self-concept in children, and to identify its limitations in this regard. Furthermore, a link can be established between this factor and the child’s self-esteem when they observe the results generated by the AI after being asked to perform certain educative and cultural tasks, activities and programs. This may have significant implications for the child’s mental health and well-being, as it presents them with a distorted image of themselves in which they do not recognize themselves.

Children’s Learning and Skills acquisition through AI. It is important to observe the kind of skills train related with the AI performance in museums, shools, kindergarten, etc. Especially the ones more related with creativity like abstraction, connection between not obvious things, imagination, critical thinking, inference, playfulness, memory, etc. We are interested to know how operates them in more or less AI constrained frames and how these constrictions trigger specific behaviors in the children and families in an intergenerational dialogue.

AI impact on Children’s emotions. Investigating emotional agency is important as AI continues to shape children’s learning and creative environments. If AI overrides children’s choices or produces outputs that feel unfamiliar or “not mine,” it may lead to emotional discomfort or reduced agency. At the same time, AI can enhance confidence and enjoyment when used in supportive and transparent ways. Understanding these dynamics is necessary for developing educational AI tools that protect children’s emotional wellbeing, uphold child-centred principles, and align with ethical frameworks focused on children’s rights and developmental needs.
In this regard we would like to afford these questions:

How do children emotionally experience creative tasks with and without AI support?
How do children perceive their control and authorship when AI is involved and how this affected their self-image and self-esteem?
How does increasing AI involvement influence emotional comfort and confidence?
What ethical design principles can support emotional agency in educational AI tools?

Children’s Reality AI Friction, Frustration and Resilience. Last but not least, we focus on the important question of the impact of AI in the children’s resilience and their threshold to overcome difficulties, unexpected and uncomfortable outcomes generated by the AI interaction and hallucination. How they react shaping new scenarios and options is pivotal to design a new kind of LLMs more open to this back and force dynamic deeply questioning the power dynamic and decision-making process.

Upcoming events

The SIG are organising their inaugural meeting at EECERA 2026 in Madeira on Tuesday, 25th August 2026, from 11:00 to 12:00 (WEST). This is a hybrid event. For any questions regarding this or if you wish to book a place to attend in person, please contact Jose Antonio Gordillo. If you will be attending online rather than in person, please register here.

Meeting agenda

Welcome and introductions
Why a SIG like this now? Main goals of the Group.
Annual meeting calendar
Content of the meetings:
SIG Agora. Open discussion on a specific topic chosen in advance.
SIG Spotlights. SIG Members to briefly present about their current practice/research on the topic, with time for Q&A.
SIG Opportunities. Announcements on topics that may be of interest to the community (conferences, publications, events and activities etc.)
Sweet provocation: Inviting children and families to the meetings?
Next steps and preparations for next meeting
Wrap up and close