This article looks at a cross-cultural analysis of interviews of (im/migrant and non-im/migrant) preschool teachers and parents, concerning im/migrant children enrolled in the French "ecole maternelle", in the context of the international Children Crossing Borders (CCB) research project. Interviews were conducted in France following a polyphonic ethnographic method developed by Joseph Tobin, using video as a tool to stimulate a multi-vocal, inter-cultural dialogue. To this, dialogue collected by a US research team using the same method is added. The two meet over issues of play, learning, care and language. Each puts the underlying national (Republican) order that defines French schooling into perspective, exposes the fundamental differences between the two norms and in the way preschool children are perceived and shows the ambivalence of migrant and non-migrant parents from diverse socio-economic environments. The dialogue highlights the normative principles and cultural values voiced by each protagonist in their everyday expression. And finally, above and beyond apparent opposition--as strong as it may be--these voices reveal more complex and ambivalent tendencies towards education. (Contains 9 notes.)