This paper presents disadvantaged households' "mental models" about low-fee private (LFP) schooling for their daughters in a study in Lucknow District, Uttar Pradesh. It argues that assumptions in the dominant discourse on girls' schooling in India obscure the complex negotiations and trade-offs disadvantaged families make when considering schooling choices for their daughters. Furthermore, they obscure a focus on change resulting from and intertwined with changing socio-economic structures and institutional contexts for schooling over time. The changing institutional context for education through increased LFP provision is the focus for analysis. Data show that participants were not selective in choosing the LFP sector by gender, and thought of it as representing the best chance for their daughters' livelihoods. (Contains 3 tables, 1 figure and 9 notes.)