ABSTRACT
It has been suggested that it takes more than a family to raise a child; it takes a community. In education we stress the need for involvement beyond the school, teacher and student to include family and community. Both ‘truisms’ recognize that human development is the result of many overlapping spheres of influence. The purpose of this chapter is to foster discussion on a broader multi-spheric conceptualization of distance education, recognizing that how we conceptualize the distance teaching/learning transaction will influence, for example, instructional design, implementation of distance education programmes and the evaluation of programme and learner success. In addition, this conceptualization drives our research, not only the questions we ask but the models by which we choose to answer them.
