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The mass access to school in Brazil gained greater intensity from the 1970s, with the increasing arrival of children and adolescents coming from families of lower socioeconomic status. This process follows the democratic transition of the country, consolidated with the 1988 Constitution. From then on the right of children and adolescents gained a new place in the Brazilian legal system, strengthening the right to school learning. This article describes the most general aspects of this process and, more specifically, works on the assumption that the social construction of students coming from those with a lower socioeconomic status is a sociological phenomenon which, to be understood, must take into account the “effects of place”. In order to better characterize its proposal, the article makes empirical references a case study that analyzes access to education of children and adolescents who live in a large favela in Rio de Janeiro.