Citation

Plante N, Negura L. Societies (Basel) 2021; 11(3): e114.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publications Institute)

DOI

10.3390/soc11030114

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Child psychological maltreatment (CPM) was incorporated into the Quebec Youth Protection Act (YPA) in 2006. At that time, various civil-society actors were invited to present to Parliament their views on these legislative changes. The objective of this article is to document the social representations mobilized by the stakeholders in the parliamentary committee in relation to the inclusion of CPM in the Quebec YPA. After explaining our research objectives, questions, and methodology, we will discuss our results, in particular about the distinctive nature of children as a representational object. This specificity will be analyzed in order to better understand the type of communication it generates and the corresponding hegemonic representation of parents. Specifically, implications related to the representational dynamics identified are discussed in relation to our collective capacity (or incapacity) to debate sensitive issues such as child abuse.

Language: en

Keywords

child psychological maltreatment; parliamentary commission; sacralized social representations; social representations; youth protection; Youth Protection Act