This paper explores the teaching practice of norms and equality in an upper secondary school in Sweden focusing on affective dimensions. The teaching and the affective qualities engendered were explored empirically and theoretically with a specific focus on engagements. Inspired by feminist posthumanism, a relational ontology was used to embrace affective dimensions as generative intensities. Using a collaborative ethnography methodology the analysis traces affective qualities within the teaching practice informed by theoretical notions of tensions and choreographies. The analysis shows how the practice of teaching is moulded with affective qualities such as safety, uncertainty, distress, troubles, silences – altogether part of enacting different modes of engagements. This foregrounds how ambiguous engagement unfolds in the teaching of norms and equality. In the concluding remarks, the messiness of affective qualities are discussed highlighting engagement in terms of collective disruptions and inviting a critical and creative sensibility.