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FrancoAngeli Journals

Articles/Articoli

Vol. 17 No. 1 (2026): Educating for Complexity: Intersectionality, Decolonial Approaches to Teaching, and Practices of Care in Education

Artificial intelligence, digital care and intersectional awareness in special education teacher education: Perceptions, competencies and risks of marginalization in a quantitative study

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/ess1-2026oa22536
Submitted
aprile 14, 2026
Published
2026-07-28

Abstract

Five hundred and fifty Italian special education teachers: this is the sample through which the study examines how a professional category is negotiating its relationship with artificial intelligence. Data reveal genuine openness ‒ yet also a fault line that is hard to overlook: between those who are digitally competent in general terms and those actually equipped to embed AI within inclusive

practice. Multiple regression analyses indicate that it is not technological self-efficacy that predicts digital care practices, but intersectional awareness. Willingness to use AI in the classroom is instead shaped by how teachers perceive their own competencies and assess the inclusive potential of tools ‒ but also, more fundamentally, how they orient their professional identity towards relational and ethical commitments. The implication for teacher educators is precise: TFA Sostegno curricula and 60-ECTS qualifying programmes cannot reduce AI to an add-on module ‒ they must integrate it within a form of training that is critical, inequality-aware, and grounded in an ethics of care.

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