Generative AI in Secondary Education: An Exploratory Single-Case Study of Study Practices, Perceptions, and Digital Inequalities

This article examines how generative artificial intelligence (AI) is being incorporated into the daily academic routines of secondary education students, with a focus on the sociocultural, pedagogical, and technological implications of its use. The study adopts an exploratory single-case design. Drawing on survey data from 101 students at a public technical school (ETEC) in São Paulo, Brazil, the study maps patterns of AI use, motivations, and perceptions and explores how digital inequalities shape students' appropriation of these tools. The analysis is grounded in cyberculture studies, the network society perspective, and the sociology of education — particularly Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and cultural capital. Findings indicate that students integrate AI into research, writing, and study organization, yet do so in disparate ways that appear conditioned by prior cultural and material resources. The article argues that AI functions as a cognitive mediator whose transformative potential is constrained by structural inequalities that predate its introduction into the school environment. The data also suggest a counterintuitive pattern: in the cross-tabulation of institutional guidance and concealment anxiety, students who reported receiving school-based guidance on AI use appeared somewhat more likely — rather than less — to feel the need to hide or justify that use than students who reported no guidance at all. Because this pattern rests on small analytical subgroups, it is offered as a sociological hypothesis rather than a confirmed association; it nonetheless raises the possibility that current institutional responses to AI may reproduce the very ambiguity they ostensibly seek to resolve. Given the single-school design and the small size of several subgroups, the findings as a whole are presented as exploratory hypotheses rather than statistical generalizations. Implications for pedagogy and educational policy are discussed.