Making the Unfamiliar Familiar: Social Representations of Teachers about Parental Engagement in an Intervention Program in Quebec

This article seeks to identify the social representations (SR) of parental engagement (PE) among teachers participating in a partnership program implemented between 2002 and 2009 in 24 primary schools located in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in Quebec, Canada. We focus on the content analysis of follow-up interviews carried out among teachers (n=32) in 2008 and the content analysis of the partnership plans (n=124) produced between 2003 and 2009. Our analysis enabled us not only to identify and describe the RS of the PE from a structural point of view, but they also reveal some of the dynamics pertaining to the SR.