Call for Papers

Call for Submissions to the "Growing Up with AI: Approaches to Community-centered AI Literacy" Workshop at IDC 2026

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Website: https://sites.google.com/view/growing-up-with-ai 

Date: June 22, 2026

Location: Hybrid (Brighton), as part of the 2026 ACM International Design and Children Conference (IDC 2026)

Manuscript submission site: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=growai26 

*IMPORTANT DATES* 

Submission deadline: April 14, 2026 Apri 22, 2026

Notification of acceptance: May 1, 2026

Camera-ready deadline: May 15, 2026

Workshop: June 22, 2026

All deadlines are at 23:59 Anywhere on Earth time (AOE).

AIM AND SCOPE 

The goal of this workshop is to call for a more holistic integration between child development, learning sciences, and child-computer interaction to move beyond fragmented, exploratory interventions towards coherent, scalable models of early AI literacy education. Specifically, we ask: 

How might children’s literacy in AI be supported by strengthening the capacity of adults and institutions around them? 

What would it mean to ensure that parents, teachers, and community members have the resources and understanding needed to guide children’s engagement with AI? 

And how do researchers and designers create AI literacy initiatives that are inclusive, sustainable, and responsive to the diverse contexts in which children encounter these technologies? 

By bringing together diverse perspectives and experiences, we hope to identify actionable pathways forward that can inform the design of more equitable and effective AI literacy initiatives for children and the communities that support them.

We invite researchers, educators, industry partners, and designers to join a half-day interactive workshop at IDC 2026 on community-centered AI literacy for children. As AI becomes increasingly embedded in children’s lives, challenges such as hallucinations, biased outputs, and deepfakes highlight the need for AI literacy that helps children and the adults around them to question, verify, and make sense of AI outputs. The workshop will feature a keynote speaker, children speakers, participant lightning talks, and hands-on activities to (1) share and compare AI literacy activities (technology-based and unplugged) and (2) identify “timeless” literacy principles and curriculum building blocks across tools (robots, AI systems, AR/VR, tangible and low-tech materials). Participants are invited to submit a short (1-2 page) contribution as a position paper, activity description, measurement approach, or community case study, and videos/pictorials are welcomed. Accepted contributions will be shared on the workshop website and presented as lightning talks and posters to motivate group activities and produce a shared community resource, curriculum components, and evaluation ideas.

TOPICS OF INTEREST

This workshop invites contributions exploring community-centered AI literacy for children, including but not limited to:

• Community-centered and cross-generational approaches to AI literacy, including parents and other family members, teachers, educators, and other community members.

• Technology-based versus unplugged AI literacy activities

• Fundamental AI literacy concepts that remain relevant across rapidly evolving AI technologies

• Evaluation methods for measuring AI literacy learning outcomes

• Designing formal curriculum or informal playful learning experiences using diverse tools such as robots, AI systems, AR/VR, tangible user interface, and low-tech materials

• Real-world case studies of AI literacy programs, community initiatives, and AI tools

• Children’s mental models and understanding of AI systems in everyday contexts across developmental stages

• Participatory and co-design methods that involve children in AI literacy experiences

• Ethical, responsible, inclusive, and rights-respecting design of AI literacy experiences and child-AI systems

We welcome empirical studies, activity designs, curriculum examples, theoretical frameworks, measurement approaches, and interdisciplinary perspectives.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Participants are invited to submit a short (1-2 page excluding references) contribution as a position paper, activity description, measurement approach, or community case study, and videos/pictorials are welcome. Accepted contributions will be shared on the workshop website and presented as lightning talks and posters to motivate group activities and produce a shared community resource, curriculum components, and evaluation ideas.

Authors should use ACM SIG format (use “sigconf” as document class, instead of  “manuscript,screen,review”) template files (US letter): https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template  

Overleaf template (use “sigconf” as document class, instead of “manuscript,screen,review”): https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/acm-conference-proceedings-primary-article-template/wbvnghjbzwpc 

Submissions do not need to be anonymized for review. All manuscripts must be written in English and submitted electronically in PDF format via EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=growai26