Towards a Conceptual Framework for Evaluating the Ethics of Compassionate Robots in Elementary Education

Compassion plays a critical role in creating inclusive, supportive learning environments that promote students' well-being and engagement. As social robots become more common in elementary classrooms to support academic and socio-emotional learning, they introduce new possibilities for modeling and nurturing compassion. However, they also raise important ethical questions about how children understand and experience care and compassion in human-robot interactions. This paper presents a conceptual framework for examining the ethics of compassionate robots in elementary education. It identifies four key ethical dimensions (Connection, Power, Access, Information) that shape how compassionate behaviors expressed or elicited by robots may influence children's perceptions of care, agency, and moral responsibility. Ultimately, the framework offers a structured approach for evaluating whether, when, and how robots should express compassion in ways that are developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive, and aligned with students' lived experiences, supporting the responsible integration of compassionate robots in education.