Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev
Studies show boys are falling behind in education and facing significant mental health challenges, with 28 percent of boys aged 3-17 experiencing behavioral or developmental issues. But there’s something else we need to be paying attention to—the risks AI poses to boys’ healthy masculinity development—according to Priten Kadakia Soundararajan-Shah, an educator, philosopher, CEO of Pedagogy Ventures, and Harvard-trained scholar in Education Policy and Management.
“Just as we’re starting to recognize the unique harms to healthy development that technology, particularly, social media poses for young boys, we now risk a further exacerbation of the problem through AI tools that reinforce the insecurities and behaviors threatening young boys,” says Soundararajan-Shah. “AI literacy for students must incorporate knowledge of and skills to protect from uniquely gendered threats to mental health.”
He explores AI further in his forthcoming book, Ethical Ed Tech: How Educators Can Lead on AI and Digital Safety in K-12 (May 18, 2026 | Jossey Bass). This actionable guidebook offers concrete strategies, case studies, and practical tools to empower teachers and school-based teams to make informed decisions that prioritize student wellbeing, privacy, and equitable access.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Priten Kadakia Soundararajan-Shah is an educator, philosopher, and entrepreneur working at the intersection of technology and education.
He is the CEO of Pedagogy Ventures, where he integrates cutting-edge technology with proven teaching strategies to help educational organizations.
He also supports three nonprofits: PedagogyFutures, as Executive Director, which provides professional development resources to build a responsible, ethical, human-centered future for educational technology; Academy 4 Social Civics, as Chair, which is dedicated to civics education that prepares students to tackle future challenges; and ThinkerAnalytix, as CTO, which is working to scale critical thinking instruction at educational institutions around the world.
Soundararajan-Shah is the author of the AI & The Future of Education: Teaching in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (Wiley, 2023), which was translated into Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Turkish, and Vietnamese. He also teaches courses on the Ethics of Ed Tech, Family & Society, and Epistemic Justice at College Unbound, a bachelor’s degree-granting institution focused on adult learners.
He holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Harvard College and an M.Ed. in Education Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.