Project description
Bridging AI gaps in education
Educational inequalities persist in an era of growing linguistic diversity, and generative AI (GenAI) is often seen as a tool to bridge these gaps. While multilingual GenAI can break language barriers, simply having access to it is not enough. What is more, because AI learns from human language, it can inherit and reinforce social, ethnic, and gender biases, potentially deepening disparities. Research into these risks is still in its early stages due to conceptual and methodological challenges. The ERC-funded ChatEQUITY will introduce the concept of prompting (l)iteracy (PIL) to assess AI skills, investigate GenAI divides in schools, and evaluate its impact on learning. It will help shape fairer, more inclusive AI-driven education.
Objective
ChatEQUITY investigates the impact of generative AI (GenAI) on educational inequalities amid growing societal linguistic diversity. The central hypothesis is that although multilingual GenAI can overcome linguistic barriers, mere access to it is insufficient because competent use is essential. Moreover, since GenAI language models are trained on and steered by human language—which reflects social class, ethnic, and gender differences—GenAI might reproduce biases and educational disparities. Research on this is lacking due to underlying limitations in the prevailing concepts, methods and data. ChatEQUITY addresses these with three objectives:
1. To introduce prompting (l)iteracy (PIL) as a novel concept for competent human-GenAI interactions and develop a pioneering assessment instrument (PIL-AI) for its measurement.
2. To identify shifts from traditional digital divides to GenAI divides—social disparities in GenAI access, use and skills —with innovative data from 3,000 students and 700 teachers across 60 high schools.
3. To evaluate the impact of GenAI use and PIL-education on educational inequalities by examining their effects on teaching and learning with three refined RCTs.
ChatEQUITY enables researchers to move beyond merely observing the effects of GenAI, toward understanding why and how GenAI affects life outcomes. Because PIL-AI uniquely combines an authentic task-based approach with scalability, this tool marks a paradigm shift in the assessment of competencies that currently depends on self-reported measures. The open data on GenAI divides establish the groundwork for research into the interplay of sociological, pedagogical, linguistic, and technological factors. Finally, by refining traditional binary RCTs (moving beyond simple comparisons between tech and non-tech users), we recenter education in educational technology research. In essence, ChatEQUITY aligns with UNESCO’s call to promote equity through GenAI capacity-building in education and research.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities languages and literature general language studies
- social sciences educational sciences didactics
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-COG
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3000 LEUVEN
Belgium
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