Shifting between image and text with an AI image generator: from personal experience to multicultural awareness and recognition bias

Visual meaning-making allows for multicultural understanding. This study examines how visual research using digital visual platforms, especially AI image generation, enhances multicultural meaning-making. The case study is a course on ‘Visual Text: Culture, Arts, and Education’ in a teacher art education programme in Israel, attended by students from diverse cultures. It is a mixed-methods study: 12 students completed a structured questionnaire, and six student assignments were analysed in an ethnographic approach. The findings indicate that navigating between personal photographs to similar general images and shifting between text and image on the various platforms provided cultural and multicultural insights, though AI use sometimes reinforced stereotypes. Interaction with Google Image Search emphasized generic patterns, while AI image generation highlighted cross-cultural differences but fixed cultural identity. We recommend incorporating diverse visual digital platforms into visual culture art education (VCAE), emphasizing the personal–general relation to enhance multicultural awareness and critically addressing stereotypes and bias.