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The aim of this research paper is to describe and discuss different forms of resistance that children display in activities aiming to develop social and emotional competence in preschool and school. Social emotional training/Social emotional learning (SET/SEL) is common in preschool and school both in Europe and North America today. Manual-based programs for socio-emotional training and the rise of what is labeled therapeutic education (Ecclestone &Hayes 2007, Furedi 2009) have dramatically increased during the first decade of the millennium. In Sweden, schools often motivate their use of these programs as a way of organizing their value-based education (von Brömssen, 2011), that is, a way of realizing the democratic ambitions expressed in educational policy documents as the national curriculum.

In this research paper we present the results from to two field studies - one in preschool and the other in lower secondary high school in Sweden. When conducting participant observation during lessons on social emotional learning (SEL), despite the democratic ambitions, children seemed to have little opportunity to influence the activities as the traditional power hierarchies, where children are subordinate, within school and classrooms prevail. Besides, many of the activities in social and emotional learning dealt with issues that both teachers and children defined as private matters - such matters that they usually do not handle in public. In research interviews children expressed many critical opinions on the forms and contents of these activities, but in preschool and school they were no invited to discuss these views. Still the children displayed their attitudes towards these activities in different forms of resistance: A common form of resistance is what here is called instrumentalization, that is to do the assignment or activity as detached as possible. Another form of resistance is making jokes both in relation to the content and form of the activities. Yet another form of resistance is being silent; this non-responsive resistance challenge both the realization of the activity as well as the social order in the classroom.