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This is about the socialization of school children and how normality is learned and managed in one preschool class and one fifth grade class in the Swedish compulsory school. The Swedish school is, according to the National Curriculum based on democratic values and respect for the individual. In accordance with these values socialization of the pupil is, as the thesis argues, accomplished through 'benevolent government' by the teachers. Benevolent governing is exercised as the adapting of techniques that is not recognized as a normalizing conduct of conduct, but as an expression of good intention. It is a misrecognized exercise of power, uncomfortable to reveal itself as such. To enable benevolent governing, the pupil needs to learn how to be him or her 'self' according to norms about how the 'self' is to be expressed. The pupil also needs to learn how to balance multiple relations in school and the different aspects that constitutes the social person. Benevolent government is here used as a description of a certain kind of teacher practice, dependent on a certain kind of pupil. The pupil-subject that is constructed is a subordinated, self-inspecting, positive, empathic person who will approve of being governed by the teachers through the governing of themselves. The study is based on anthropological fieldwork during two years in these classes.

This article offers a critical investigation into the conceptualisation and the representations of anger in manual-based programmes for social and emotional training used in a Swedish preschool group and in a preschool class. The study is based on participant observation and analysis of programme materials (teachers' manuals, materials for exercises, children's workbooks) used in these settings. Anger is hyper-cognised in the programmes, highlighted as a destructive emotion which needs to be under control. It is argued here that the examples of anger presented in the programmes, and the narratives of anger which are positively sanctioned by teachers in exercises, appear as adult representations of children's anger rather than reflecting children's own experiences of being angry. The anger (situations) proposed in the programmes thus become models for real-life experiences, rather than models of real-life experiences. The situations proposed by the programme constructors and the teachers become general representations into which the children are expected to organise their personal experiences. The aim of the exercises dealing with anger is not about understanding why anger occurs in some situations, but to identify situations where children need to be in control. Real life experiences of anger do not match the provided conceptualisations and representations of anger and actually undermine the aim of the exercises, which is to shape self-regulating institutional persons who do not challenge the prevailing social order.