In recent decades the research in science education have focused increasingly in the effect of sociological processes in science teaching,

and in particular in the structure-agency dialectic that characterizes the teaching practice. The present work aims to contribute to this discussion taking advantage of a theoretical contribution of great importance for the sociology of education, but still little used in the understanding of science education contexts: the Pierre Bourdieu sociology of education. To this end, we organized two focus groups with secondary science teachers in Brazil, one composed exclusively of physics teachers, and the other of teachers from other scientific disciplines. The guideline for these groups were based on the discussion of the concept of quality in science education, a concept that has not received enough attention in science education journals, although it resonates powerfully in educational journals. The choice of this theme was motivated by its relations with sociological processes that affect the educational system, and the posibility to interpret its incresinly importance in educational policies by Bourdieu's theory. The records of both groups were subjected to a content analysis and interpreted in the light of our theoretical framework, aimed at two main objectives: (1) Identification of sociological phenomena described by Bourdieu in the discourse of teachers; (2) Characterization of the opinion of teachers about the concept of quality of education and of their specificities in science education. The results show that teachers believe they are going through a situation of reduced quality of education but, consistent with Bourdieu's theory, there seems to be a process of dissimulation difficulting the identification of structural causes for this phenomenon. Additionally, teachers showed suspicion regarding the use of the concept of quality in education, which seems to be motivated by negative experiences with proposals that were based on this concept. The characterization obtained for what actually would be a quality science education from the perspective of teachers can serve as input to proposals to promote quality education that prevents this kind of mismatch.