Open and distance education in feminist theories: a Latin American large-scale case study

Gender-based violence has made feminist education a public concern in Latin America, sharpened in Chile by the 2018 ‘Feminist May’, yet large-scale evidence on who such courses reach is absent. This study describes the University of Chile’s MOOC ‘Introduction to Feminist Theories’ and analyses its 11 editions (2019–2024). An exploratory, ex post facto design combined platform records for 98,635 enrolees, voluntary initial (n = 32,428) and exit (n = 3,074 completers) surveys, and an AI-assisted, human-validated thematic analysis of 6,070 open comments. Completion reached 10.72%, rising to 24.20% in Ecuador, where an institutional recognition agreement operates; Enrollees were predominantly women (87.47%) and, among respondents, university-educated. Satisfaction was highest for content (90.50%) and lowest for forums (76.76%), with statistically significant but weak differences by gender, age and country. The gender gap in completion persisted despite a female majority and free access did not broaden the audience beyond highly educated participants, while dialogue at scale and academic language emerged as the main pedagogical challenges. Survey-based estimates describe self-selected respondents and cannot be generalised to all enrollees.