ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses ethnographic investigation and details about AIDS, only perceived as a threat to the survival of youth on isolated island nation. It suggests that vulnerability, guilt, and danger are associated with the lives of school girls in ways unknown to their brothers and male partners. Social power and danger lace localized understandings of schooling in urban, coastal Madagascar. Schooling is also valued for pragmatic reasons, because basic math and writing skills are of quotidian importance. For most local students school success is thus an unattainable dream, particularly when financial, political, and social forces determine access to quality education in a nation with a bankrupt educational system. Video cinemas and discotheques together do indeed pose a significant financial threat, because students who spend time in either setting regularly will most certainly be short of essential funds for school supplies and food. Contrary to adults' assumptions, most school migrants cannot afford the town's threatening diversions.
