Drawing on an ethnographic study of a remote community in the Auvergne, Dr. Reed-Danahay challenges conventional views about the operation of the French school system. She shows how parents subvert and resist the ideological messages of the teachers, and describes the ways in which a sense of local difference is sustained and valued, even in the official educational discourse. A significant contribution to the anthropology of education, this book offers fresh insights into the ways in which French culture is transmitted to the coming generation. Dr. Reed-Danahay also provides lucid and critical discussions of sociological theories on education, including those of Bourdieu.