75

Today, Sub-Saharan African countries develop their education policies in the context of a new international doxa poverty reduction policies. From the case of Dakar, the article shows that the decision-making and monitoring of these policies promote a restructuring of power inequalities to the detriment of the state and of the weakest social groups, whose standards are evicted in favour of the cognitive frameworks of donors and individuals located at normative interfaces. The objective of rapid increases in school enrolment rates leads to a shift of inequalities within the school system. In this context, some families adopt the international norms considering school in simple economic terms while others choose to reconsider jointly the social and religious role of school, and campaign in favour of Franco-Arabic schools. The article reveals how the will to standardise the relation to education within a specific educational imperative can paradoxically lead to a diversification of educational norms in an urban centre such as Dakar.