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Extending academic studies and the whole issue of educational qualifications have generated a new division of labour in child-training both at home and at school. From the perspective of parents included in this study – involving 30 individual interviews with low-income urban families, a third of whom of immigrant origin – the school’s mission to provide instruction implies socialization and training the younger generation in citizenship, according to the norms and values inculcated by the teachers and the “Republican ideal”, Schools have the function of guaranteeing a dual equality : that of rights between individual and between families, and that of giving equal opportunities to schoolchildren. When this aspiration is projected on dominated groups that also suffer from social and ethnic discrimination, it comes face to face with, firstly, the growing permeability of relations between the school and its environment and, secondly, the particular characteristics of each child attending school.