This contribution examines perceptions of ethnic minority pupils and cultures in English and French education. It draws upon interviews with parents in a new project on school choice and its effects on social and urban polarisation in Paris and London. The main emphasis of this paper is on parents with secondary school children in Paris and London. The respondents are predominantly white middle class parents living in areas characterised by relatively high levels of ethnic and social diversity. Sixty semi-structured interviews in France and thirty in England investigate parental values and representations, and the impact of these values and representations on their strategies in terms of school choice. Here we focus on these middle class parents' perceptions of ethnic minority pupils at school in terms of the social and academic effects attributed to their presence. It appears that different groups inside the middle classes are characterised by varying degrees of acceptance of ethnic mix, by the perceptions of the effects this mix may result in for their child and the strategies developed in order to promote, mediate or contain the extent and nature of contact with other ethnic groups and cultures. The cross-national comparison reveals that many practices, concerns and strategies are shared by middle class parents across the Channel. At the same time, it also suggests that the range of perceptions available to parents is a social construction which is constrained by cultural, political and educational traditions and values. As a result, perceptions of ethnicity appear culturally embedded in two highly specific national contexts. These traditions play a significant role on the way ethnic groups are described, on conceptions of relations between groups and on the concerns that can legitimately be expressed in both cultures. The findings from the interviews with parents are then confronted to official rhetoric as approached through government documentation. Considering these two vantage points inside each national context allows tensions to emerge between policy and practice, between the aims expressed by officials and those stated by parents. The language used by these different actors to refer to ethnic minority pupils and cultures, the 'facts' they state, their unquestioned assumptions and the common knowledge they draw upon are used as indicators of the complex and partly contradictory perceptions of ethnicity inside England and France. These allow us to question the coherence and the current relevance to parents of national ideologies such as the French 'Republican' tradition or the English emphasis on multiculturalism and diversity.