A united and thriving Europe? A sociology of the European Schools’ and ‘If personalised education and artificial intelligence are a democratic problem, could pluralisation be the democratic solution?

There is currently much debate about the ‘dangers’ of new artificial intelligence (AI) technologies as they start to impact on many familiar social systems. However, little is written regarding the broader educational sociology of AI. In its simplest form, AI merely represents a fairly incremental technological progression, through increasing personalisation of provision. However there is still significant work to be done, if AI is to reach its full potential in terms of human flourishing. We draw on Kucirkova’s previous empirical work to outline the complexity of personalised learning that goes beyond algorithm-led learning models, and we argue that more attention needs to be paid to the democratic impact of such systems. Drawing on Bernstein’s three ‘conditions for democracy’, we develop a new framework for conceptualising personalised education, assessment systems and AI. Finally we propose a set of best practice principles for AI use if they are to work sustainably