'Education of quality' and 'quality of education' are terms repeated in documents and speeches that go with propositions of action in educational field and that are used to justify specific strategies of educational policies. This article intends to explain these concepts, considering that the different uses or different interpretations might be consequences of historical-social processes that pervaded countries in the last decades. The study sustains that the concept of 'quality' becomes a dilemma for the definition of educational policies, because it can be used with very different senses and contents and, in some cases, antagonical, and recognizes the existence of an ideological content of the concept when linked to education.
quality education; education and ideology; educational estrategies policies