Co-Designing Community-Centered AI Education for Adults: A Midwestern Case Study
For adult learners outside formal education, this work provides a case study of community-centered AI education, but is incremental as it reports a single session without quantitative outcomes.
This case study of an AI education session with 54 adults in a predominantly African American community found that co-designed sessions shifted concerns to locally grounded questions about AI design and deployment, arguing for community-centered AI literacy frameworks.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) education is increasingly important, yet adults outside higher education receive less attention. We report a case study of an AI education session with 54 adults (48 in-person and 6 virtual) in a predominantly African American community on the east side of a major Midwestern city. We ask: "What does AI education for adults outside formal educational systems look like in practice?" and "What does this AI education session reveal about AI literacy at the community level?" Through a co-designed session developed with community partners, we found that concerns about AI persisted but shifted to specific, locally grounded questions about AI design and deployment. We also discuss AI literacy from a community capacity perspective and argue for AI literacy frameworks grounded in local community contexts that strengthen community capacity.