Représentations sociales sur l’école et stratégies déployées par des parents récemment immigrés pour soutenir l’expérience socioscolaire de leurs enfants dans la société d’accueil : regards croisés de parents et d’ICSI

This research aims to study newcomer students’ immigrant parents’ relationship in regards to school and education in Quebec. Specifically, we examined these parents’ social representations (SR) with respect to the host and home societies’ school systems as well as the strategies they deploy to support their children’s educational experience in Quebec’s school context. The originality of our study lies in the use of the SR concept to explore the relationship between newcomer parents in Quebec and school, the consideration of their premigratory situation and, in crossing two views on the situation of interest: newcomer immigrant parents and community, education and cross-culture worker (CECW).  In the context of a qualitative interpretative exploratory approach, our data collection was done with six CECW (6) and twenty-five newcomer students’ immigrant parents in Québec (25). In both cases, we have made semi-structured interviews. Also, to access the complexity of SR, we used the technique of free associations with the parents (Carassus & Dosquet, 2010; Vidal & al., 2006). According to our results, parents’ representations of school system in Quebec were mostly based on their migratory experience: reasons for migrating and conditions of establishment in the host society. Also, our results revealed the pertinence to structure parents' SR around four main themes: children’s school, social and professional integration into the host society; intellectual development and school structure; various socialization issues conveyed into school and into society; relationship between school and immigrant families. In this regard, although parents compare various elements between school in the host and home societies, their SR of school in Quebec are generally related to the future of their children, and these SR highly raise school’s ability to integrate their children in the school and socio-professional contexts. Also, our data converge to express many parents’ the desire to see their children’s human capital being at its full potential in the migratory context. Our results also shows that school is rooted in a specific context, while the parents’ SR often illustrate socio-cultural values conveyed in Quebec’s school, and while the terms of relationship between school and families are not always known by immigrant parents. These two points of view - those of parents and CECW -, when put into perspective, also reveals the several strategies mobilized by immigrant parents to support their children's educational experience in the host society. These strategies have been categorized as follows: strategies deployed "at home", "in school" and "with community". Our results suggest that the actualisation of the role of "in school" students’ parents is subject to some terms imposed by school. Also, our results highlight an interesting gap between parents mobilization and proactivity to support their children, and the fact that their actions are invisible for school, especially when strategies are deployed in the privacy of the family environment, or in collaboration with the community. Putting into perspective these two points of view also led us to clarify the support needed by newly immigrated parents to manage different issues related to school and schooling in the host society. Also, we have been able to identify practices deployed by school and community that are likely to support newly immigrated parents in the school context. Overall, our results converge to the pertinence of giving greater consideration to parents in their children’s integration process in Quebec’s school and on the necessity of encouraging greater partnerships between school and families. Finally, it seems that school cannot ensure on its own the integration of newcomer immigrant families and the academic achievement of newly immigrated students in Quebec's schools. In this regard, ICSI seem to be strategic resources.

Keyphrases: Social representations (SR), Parents from recent immigration, Community, education and cross-culture worker (CECW), Parents’ strategies to support educational experience of their child, Educational experience of newcomer immigrant students