EIREducational Innovation Research3029-18443029-1852WHIOCE PUBLISHING PTE. LTD.10.18063/EIR.v3i8.911ArticleAlgorithmic Inclusion or Professional Displacement? Reconstructing Teacher Agency in Rural Small-Scale Schools in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and Demographic Contractionhttps://artdesignp.com/journal/EIR/3/8/10.18063/EIR.v3i8.911HeXingyuan2025382025-09-26As China navigates the unprecedented intersection of a “demographic winter” (negative population growth) and a “digital spring” (the explosion of Generative AI), rural basic education faces a critical juncture. The demographic hollowing has rendered traditional “scale-based” educational models obsolete in rural areas, leaving small-scale schools as the primary morphology. Concurrently, the rapid deployment of Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIEd) promises to bridge the resource gap but poses a new existential threat: the potential “deskilling” of rural teachers and the reduction of their role to mere “system operators.” Drawing upon the theory of Socio-Technical Systems and the Ecological Approach to Teacher Agency, this paper argues that the survival of rural education depends not on replacing teachers with algorithms, but on a fundamental reconstruction of teacher agency. We propose a transition from the “knowledge transmitter” to the “algorithmic orchestrator,” “contextual curator,” and “emotional anchor.” This study posits that only through this “human-in-the-loop” transformation can rural schools leverage AI to achieve personalized learning while preserving the cultural and emotional integrity of rural education.Rural education, Artificial intelligence (AIEd), Teacher agency, Human-AI collaboration, Demographic contraction, Digital divide

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