Reframing Literacy in the Age of AI: Critical Literacy in Adult and Lifelong Learning

Abstract

In increasingly digital and AI-mediated educational environments, adult learners are required to navigate complex information landscapes shaped by artificial intelligence, digital platforms, and algorithmically generated content. In such contexts, digital literacy can no longer be understood solely as the acquisition of technical competencies. Rather, contemporary digital literacy requires the evaluative and reflective capacities traditionally associated with critical literacy, including the ability to question assumptions, critically evaluate information, engage dialogically with knowledge, and recognise the technological and ideological systems that shape contemporary communication and knowledge production. Consequently, critical literacy has become particularly important within adult and lifelong learning as learners seek to participate meaningfully and ethically within digitally mediated societies. Drawing on Freirean pedagogy and transformative learning theory, this paper revisits critical literacy as a reflective, emancipatory, and socially situated practice grounded in critical consciousness and perspective transformation. It explores how digital technologies can support the development of critical literacy when embedded within learner-centred pedagogies. It further examines the pedagogical potential of digital tools including digital badges, Turnitin Clarity, and Gather to foster reflection, dialogue, writing development, communicative learning, and evaluative judgement. Rather than positioning technology as inherently transformative, this paper argues that it is the pedagogical framing of digital tools that determines their capacity to support critical engagement and learner agency, preserving human criticality within AI-mediated educational systems. This paper highlights the continuing relevance of transformative learning theory in contemporary digital contexts and argues that critical reflection and dialogic learning remain central to adult education in an era shaped by artificial intelligence and digital communication. It concludes that critically informed digital pedagogies can create meaningful opportunities for learners to develop the reflective and evaluative capacities necessary for informed participation in contemporary digital society.