Abstracts:

This paper questions the extent to which online distance learning can democratize access to education for potential women learners. It examines how online education @an suit the ontologies of Mauritian women to empower them for development. Eventually, it hopes to create space for sustainable democracy. Withlh. the social relations analytical framework, this paper examines how two specific spaces in which thirty middle class women evolve, that is marriagehmily and occupation, provide the supporting environment to enable women engage in an educational endeavour that promotes the unfolding of their potentials and creativities. These two spaces were selected because they were the ones in which the researcher interacted the most, while online learning was setected on the basis of the discretion and degree of learner control it can offer. This paper concludes that indeed online learning can offer enormous possibilities for personal development provided the power relationships in the two social spaces analyzed are well negotiated.