Reframing Pedagogical Neutrality: Algorithmic Templates in Digital Learning Environments

This paper examines how digital learning platforms increasingly rely on algorithmic instructional templates that simulate pedagogical neutrality. Rather than enabling critical thinking or adaptive learning, these standardized structures enforce a form of depersonalized authority that removes teacher agency and embeds implicit ideological norms. Drawing on critical AI scholarship, the article explores how the formalism of such systems aligns with broader patterns of synthetic authority in technological environments. The analysis concludes that pedagogical neutrality, when algorithmically coded, becomes an instrument of structural obedience.