Beyond Access: A Meta-Synthesis on Inclusive and AI-Supported Learning Materials in Higher Education

Beyond access lies a richer, more complex vision of inclusion—one that recognizes the cultural, ethical, and pedagogical dimensions of learning in an AI-mediated world. This qualitative meta-synthesis examines more than 20 studies on the design and experience of inclusive, AI-supported instructional materials in higher education, with a deliberate emphasis on Southeast Asian contexts. Framed by Universal Design for Learning, Critical Digital Pedagogy, and Sociotechnical Systems Theory, the study reinterprets inclusion not as a technical fix, but as a co-constructed, culturally situated practice. Findings reveal that while AI enables personalization and multimodal access, it also introduces tensions around learner agency, algorithmic transparency, and educator authorship. Educators, especially in the Global South, navigate these tensions through grounded strategies: localizing content, resisting homogenization, and reclaiming design as a relational act. The study’s conceptual and theoretical coherence, coupled with rigorous thematic synthesis using SPIDER, PRISMA, and CASP, surfaces new insights into how inclusive design unfolds under constraint. It offers actionable implications for educators, curriculum developers, institutions, policymakers, students, and researchers—calling for inclusive AI practices that are contextually informed, ethically anchored, and co-authored. Overall, the paper reframes inclusion as an act not merely of entry, but of belonging, reciprocity, and recognition.