The purpose of this paper is to discuss the implications for democratic education in primary school, and the fostering of future democratic citizens, when democratic education is understood as value-based education, using socio-emotional manual-based programs. This is done in two steps. First I contextualize the usage of socio-emotional programs through an educational historical point of view, from an educational philosophical and political point of view, and from a sociological perspective. Then I look closer to one of the manual-based programs, the textbook material for Lower Secondary School (grades 7-9): Important for life – social and emotional training (SET), through analyzing the constructions of virtues and values in it. In the last part, I discuss if and how these constructions of virtues and values can be understood as political.
Alternative title (as presented in abstract): Being a democratic citizen in the age of the therapeutic culture in a Swedish and English perspective