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Abstract
As generative AI technologies become increasingly embedded in educational settings, art educators are confronted with complex ethical dilemmas surrounding authorship, creative labor, and institutional responsibility. This study investigates how Chinese art teachers in secondary and higher education interpret and respond to AI-assisted student artworks. Drawing on mixed methods, including a national survey with 312 participants and six focus group interviews, the research identifies three intersecting axes of ethical tension: judgment authority, creative process valuation, and moral responsibility. The findings reveal a precarious ethical terrain in which teachers, in the absence of clear curricular policy, serve as de facto arbiters of originality and legitimacy. Educators express ambivalence toward AI-generated outputs, navigating between conceptual authorship and visual authenticity while relying on personal heuristics and emotional labor to manage evaluation uncertainty. Building on postdigital ethics and theories of aesthetic agency, the article proposes a layered authorship model and calls for the institutionalization of AI-disclosure protocols and the development of national guidelines on creative ethics. This study contributes to the emerging discourse on educational justice and aesthetic governance in technologically mediated classrooms.
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