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What happens when approaches designed to boost well-being and learning in wealthy, stable contexts are exported to crisis-affected settings? Over the past two decades, social emotional learning (SEL) has become a cornerstone of foreign aid strategies in education in emergencies (EiE), despite limited evidence of its effectiveness in these contexts. In this talk, Dr. Rena Deitz will examine why SEL hasn’t “worked” as intended, drawing on more than a decade of research and practice. Her talk traces SEL’s rise in humanitarian education, its transfer from global discourse to local practice, and the tensions in adapting SEL to crisis-affected communities to explore how the global SEL agenda reflects policy transfer under the guise of “good intentions.” Findings from a systematic review and a mixed-methods case study in Palabek Refugee Settlement, Uganda—including interviews, co-design with local stakeholders, and a randomized controlled trial (n≈550)—reveal that while SEL holds promise, its effectiveness may be impeded by the divergent goals and priorities held by local communities and global actors. SEL, like other education policies and practices, may be manipulated, adapted, and adopted by actors to achieve different aims. Ultimately, my work argues that re-centering SEL on community-defined priorities, rather than Western standards of success, is essential for crisis-affected children and their communities. Moving beyond surface-level localization requires examining how SEL is translated, implemented, and measured. Scholars, practitioners, and policymakers alike must critically interrogate the limits of “localization,” which, rather than dismantling inequities, can reproduce them under the guise of empowerment.