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This article examines the normative stakes linked to schooling choices in Djibouti. It takes a closer look at the education strategies implemented in order to understand where international education standards (represented by official schools and French schools) and norms based on traditional education (Koranic schools and madrasas) converge, as well as where they diverge. The normative principles which the globalized discourse on education refers to are put into perspective with individual schooling strategies. This allows us to understand what the schooling choices made by families tell us about the resistance to, integration with and negotiation of the universalist discourse which dominates the field of education.