Reframing Equity, Gender, and Technology through a Care-Based Lens: Toward Peace in a Divided Educational Landscape

• In Event: Rethinking Girls’ Education in Shifting Worlds: Dialogues Across Perspectives, Contexts, and Knowledges

Proposal

This paper critically examines the evolving intersections of gender, development, and education in the post-2020 era, drawing on Baily and Holmarsdottir’s (2015) reframing of equity and quality in global education discourse. Challenging dominant neoliberal paradigms that reduce equity to access and quality to quantifiable outcomes, the paper advocates for a more relational and context-sensitive approach – one that foregrounds justice, inclusion, and transformative pedagogy. In a world increasingly marked by division – social, economic, and epistemic – this reframing is essential to reimagining education as a vehicle for peace.
Building on this foundation, the paper explores the ethical implications of digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI) in education, drawing on recent debates about responsible AI integration. As Sabbaghan (2025) argues, the question is not merely how AI can be used, but why and when. This ethical framing resonates with the “ethics of care” (Noddings, 1984), a moral theory that prioritizes relationships, attentiveness, and contextual judgment over abstract principles and universal rules. Inspired by thinkers such as Nel Noddings (1984), Carol Gilligan (1982), and Joan Tronto (1994), care ethics offers a compelling alternative to justice-based frameworks, particularly in educational contexts where vulnerability, dependency, and relationality are central.
In this light, the paper proposes a care-based approach to both gender and technology in education – one that recognizes the moral significance of relationships and the need to support both caregivers and care-receivers within educational systems. This approach challenges the instrumentalization of gender and development agendas (Baily & Holmarsdottir, 2015) for economic ends and calls for a pedagogy rooted in empathy, discretion, and cultural responsiveness. It also interrogates the role of AI and digital tools in either exacerbating or mitigating educational inequities. For example, while AI-driven personalization may offer support to multilingual learners or students with diverse needs, its design and implementation must be guided by inclusive, participatory, and care-oriented principles. If the why is about supporting human intellectual labour and fostering intellectual virtue, the when is about the specific, contextual, and human needs of the learner. This framing aligns with care ethics, which emphasizes responsiveness to individual circumstances and the relational dimensions of learning – moving beyond an instrumental view of education, particularly in discussions around girls’ education and global development.
By integrating feminist and postcolonial critiques with emerging debates on educational technology, the paper contributes to a broader vision of education that is not only equitable and inclusive but also peace-promoting. In a divided world, where education can either reproduce or resist systemic injustices, the ethics of care becomes indispensable. It invites educators, policymakers, and researchers to re-examine the moral foundations of their work and to prioritize human dignity, relational integrity, and social cohesion.
Ultimately, this paper argues that rethinking equity and innovation through a care-based lens offers a pathway toward educational peace – one that is deeply attuned to the complexities of gender, technology, and global justice.

Author

• Halla B Holmarsdottir, Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet)