Research article | Open Access
Base for Electronic Educational Sciences 2026, Vol. 7(2) 1-26
The Legitimacy Paradox of AI-Supported School Management: Justice, Trust, and the ‘Black Box’ in Teachers’ Perceptions
pp. 1 - 26 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23650872
Publish Date: September 30, 2026 | Single/Total View: 0/0 | Single/Total Download: 0/0
Abstract
This study examines how primary school teachers evaluate AI-supported managerial decisions through the lenses of justice, trust, transparency, and acceptance. Rather than treating artificial intelligence solely as a technological innovation, the study focuses on how algorithmic support interacts with institutional power relations, professional judgment, and the legitimacy of school-level decisions. A qualitative case study design was employed with six participants selected through criterion sampling. Data were generated in a 49-minute scenario-based focus group interview in which four hypothetical cases enabled comparison between traditional human-centered and AI-supported decisions. The transcripts were analyzed through qualitative content analysis in MAXQDA 2026, considering manifest and latent meanings together.
The findings reveal what this study conceptualizes as a legitimacy paradox. Teachers were attracted to AI-supported decisions because data-driven procedures appeared capable of reducing seniority pressure, favoritism, personal discretion, and other human sources of inconsistency. Yet the same decisions lost legitimacy when the data, criteria, or reasoning behind algorithmic outputs became opaque, when classifications risked stigmatizing students, or when professional responsibility appeared to shift from educators to the system. Justice and trust therefore operated as central evaluative criteria across both traditional and AI-supported scenarios. Participants favored neither autonomous algorithmic authority nor unstructured human discretion, but a hybrid decision-support model in which AI contributes consistency and analytical capacity while contextual, pedagogical, and ethical responsibility remains human. The study argues that legitimate AI-supported school management depends not only on technical accuracy but on explainability, contestability, equitable criteria, accountability, and meaningful human oversight.
Keywords: artificial intelligence, educational management, managerial legitimacy, decision-making, justice, trust, transparency, human oversight
APA 7th edition
Guven, S., & Alagoz, S.K. (2026). The Legitimacy Paradox of AI-Supported School Management: Justice, Trust, and the ‘Black Box’ in Teachers’ Perceptions. Base for Electronic Educational Sciences, 7(2), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23650872
Harvard
Guven, S. and Alagoz, S. (2026). The Legitimacy Paradox of AI-Supported School Management: Justice, Trust, and the ‘Black Box’ in Teachers’ Perceptions. Base for Electronic Educational Sciences, 7(2), pp. 1-26.
Chicago 16th edition
Guven, Sibel and Semanur Kulan Alagoz (2026). "The Legitimacy Paradox of AI-Supported School Management: Justice, Trust, and the ‘Black Box’ in Teachers’ Perceptions". Base for Electronic Educational Sciences 7 (2):1-26. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23650872
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