This research conceives the definition of educational quality as a social process, with only a few aspects of the diversity of conceptions of schooling present in society being met, and usually limited to upper and middle class demands. What would the construction of an educational project catering to the particular demands of the lower classes look like? This ethnography studies a public school in the poor suburbs of Duque de Caxias, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, which is considered by distinct social actors to be a democratic and quality one. The research goals seek to understand: what are the meanings that these actors use to define the school as quality and democratic; how do these meanings affect social relations and educational practices at the school; and what are the constraints imposed on the school by the educational system. The ethnography was based on intensive fieldwork over a period of 19 months, with more than 600 hours of observations, from which was produced 500 pages of field notes and more than 70 hours of recordings of interviews, meetings with teachers, parents, pupils, researchers, schoolboard administrative staff and events at universities. The educational project of the school proposes a specific form for the coordination and organization of schoolwork, oriented to the understanding of differences between school and lower class family cultures, the effects of urban segregation, and individual pupil trajectories. In this sense, school actors seek the construction of a school for the poor periphery, which works towards reducing or reverting the production of the inequalities that constitute the school experience. For actors at the school, analysis of educational quality must not be limited to the performance of students, teaching- learning relations in the classroom, nor to the environment of the establishment. As such, the offer of quality public school education is interdependent and associated with the regulations and social orders developed in interactions with the physical structure of the school, between the private and public school systems and inter-organizational relations, with the territories, with the educational system and the politics of the teaching network and area, with the position of the public school in society, and with educational policies. In their actions, school actors manipulate and rebuild personal and professional identities, redefine ethical principles and school justice, reorganize forms of interaction between actors, and between themselves and knowledge, and make school and local education system hierarchies flexible. These processes and mobilizations are all linked to the singular enactment of the right to quality public education.