The professional identity of teachers in the era of artificial intelligence: Challenges and redefinitions in the Latin American context

The digital transformation—accelerated by the intensive use of new social interaction platforms (social media) and the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) as a catalyst for productive and knowledge processes—is profoundly reshaping the experience of formal learning and, consequently, the role of the professional educator within it. This introduction to the dossier «The Professional Identity of Educators in the Age of Artificial Intelligence» critically examines these contemporary changes and proposes an updated set of guiding principles that are increasingly defining our educational practices. Specifically, it addresses: the necessarily reflective role of educators in the ongoing development of their students; critical reading as a key investigative competence; the paradigm of collaborative learning in everyday teaching practice; technological mediation as a regular and constitutive ecosystem of the current educational experience; and the imperative of diversity and inclusion within educational contexts shaped by contingent counter-processes driven by political powers. Accordingly, from an interpretive and multidisciplinary perspective, the contributions gathered in this special issue outline an underlying narrative in which the 21st-century educator must not only adopt emerging technological tools to construct today’s educational experience, but, above all, strengthen their role as a critical, ethical, and cultural mediator of knowledge.