The theoretical framework is inspired by governmentality studies in education. The key concepts are problematization, formatting technologies and dispositive. The outset of the paper is a Danish empirical study of 44 files from educational psychologists and articles from journals concerning schools and education. The findings of the study conclude that students are problematized and excluded from the mainstream school on the basis of different problematizations of behaviour. In the present period the problematizations demand that subjects become social,reflexive and learning individuals. The formatting technologies are: the relationship between student and teacher, work with emotions, an appreciative approach to the student, structure of the class, and the diagnosis as the final technology. Through these problematizations and technologies, the paper argues that an ‘optimizing’ dispositive, as a system of power, leads the problematizations and technologies.