Between Scylla and Charybdis: Artificial Intelligence as a Force for Educational Change

This exploratory study examines how artificial intelligence reshapes educational leadership and policy primarily in K–12 settings, analyzing interviews with 32 school administrators across 20 countries. Using Bauman’s liquid modernity as a heuristic lens, it identifies three patterns: liquefied decision-making, fluid professional identities, and institutional fragmentation with market-oriented commodification. Negative cases, however, reveal persistent bureaucratic structures, active resistance to dehumanization, and contexts where AI reduces uncertainty. The findings suggest AI integration produces context-dependent tensions between efficiency and deliberation, data and judgment, and commodification and humanistic values, offering an empirically grounded typology for policy and leadership practice.