The subjective experience that underlies the ways in which families underprivileged participate in school life tends to be invisiblized within the broad range of studies on parents' school involvement practices and educational equity. This article presents the results of a semantic structural analysis of 19 semistructured interviews with mothers of students living in socially underprivileged environments. The interviews were aimed at answering the following research question: "how do teacher communicative styles, as perceived by underprivileged parents, influence their way of participating at school?" Results suggest the preeminence of a critical and undervaluing teacher communicative style that prevents mothers' parental competences from being recognized. This perception inhibits parental participation while also encouraging parents to be more vigilant of teacher work in the classroom (...

There is scholarly consensus that the involvement of fathers in preschool education optimizes child-adolescent development. However, in practice, fathers’ participation is low compared to that of mothers. This article presents the results of a qualitative study aimed to exploring the perceptions of fathers with children who attend private educational centers in Chile about the conditions that encourage or discourage them from participating in their children’s activities at school. Semi structured interviews were held with fathers of children who attend 8 preschools. The article reveals positive attitudes toward participation which are hindered by cultural, structural, and institutional factors. Conditions of possibility become privatized and come to depend on the ability to reach agreements among parental figures. This study contributes to the scientific understanding of the conditio...