Generative AI, Materiality, and Power: The Need for Critical Digital Literacies

• In Event: The Promises and Pitfalls of Digital Literacies

Abstract

This paper critically examines multilingual Canadian youths' interactions with generative AI (GenAI), emphasizing how platform design and material conditions shape their critical digital literacy practices and power negotiations. Drawing on notions of sociomateriality and critical digital literacies, it demonstrates how unequal access to resources can shape agency and critical engagement with GenAI. By analyzing diverse learner-GenAI interactions, the study advocates for pedagogies fostering critical awareness and equitable participation, addressing divides within GenAI-mediated literacy practices.

Author

• Ron Darvin, University of British Columbia