The purpose of this dissertation is to make an exploratory study on the choices of private educational institutions in Rio de Janeiro. It is linked to the SOCED/PUC- Rio in the Sociology of Education studies about elite schooling. Based on interviews, it sought to perceive the criteria and strategies used by families when choosing Child Education and Elementary Education schools. In order to achieve a more comprehensive view of the phenomenon, data from the SOCED survey in the research entitled Institutional contexts and the quality of teaching in basic education (2009) were used. Studies by Zaia Brandão, Maria Alice Nogueira and their collaborators were applied in the interlocution with the subject, as well as studies recommended by them in their articles, such as the ones by Ball, Gewirtz and Bowe, Héran and Ballion, among others. In addition, the work has as its theoretical orientation, the studies by Pierre Bourdieu on habitus ethos and the maintenance and amplification of the social capital through the school.The first chapter presents the contextualization of the research and the objective s delimitation in the SOCED s studies and the elites schooling. The second chapter discusses the methodological strategies used in the interviews perspective articulation and survey questionnaires. The third chapter presents the families, subjects of this research, and the images formed by them about the learning institutions taken into consideration when making a choice. Chapter IV broaches the selection of a Child Education school, presenting and explaining its main criteria. In Chapter V, the SOCED s survey data and interviews are analyzed as a whole, in an effort to understand the weight that quality of Fundamental education has in the studied sectors.