In Brazilian educational research we still lack studies which focus on the schooling process of youngsters from families privileged from the economic point of view. This paper aims, therefore, to make an incursion into a highly incomplete field, presenting some partial results of a study undertaken in 2000-2001, with 25 families of average to successful entrepreneurs from Minas Gerais. The aim of the study was to learn about the young people's school history and the educational strategies used by their parents during that time. A corpus of 50 interviews conducted with the youngsters and their mothers was compiled. Our conclusions allow us to question the current belief that the pattern of school excellence is a privilege of "the rich", or in other terms, that school élites are composed of "rich" students.
school trajectory; family educational strategies; school
