School counsellors have been an occupation in Sweden since the 1940s but despite this, there is very little knowledge and research about school counsellors’ preconditions according to their work. This study aims to examine in what frequencies school counsellors’ use evidence-based methods in their work with students in senior high school. The result is based on a survey with N 215 respondents from all over Sweden and the analysis theoretical perspective is founded on evidence-based practice (EBP) and new institutional theory. The result indicates that school counsellors in Sweden do not use evidence-based methods to such an extent and that there are organisational and structural obstacles for school counsellors to base their work from evidence-based practice. There is a decoupling process where ideals of EBP do not match the reality as different kinds of logic appear and come into conflict with each other over whose legitimacy is the one that should dominate the organizational field. To increase the conditions, a school management that provides support and enables professional guidance and competence development is needed. The research field needs to start looking at the school counsellors’ practice from a bottom-up perspective to see what they do that works and develop EBP and the organizational field based on this. This is one way to give school counsellors’ more legitimacy.

The aim of this study is to analyze school counselors' experience regarding their work with children living under difficult home conditions. The objective is the counselors' view on their profession, their perceived mandate within their professional role, and the resources allocated to them. The method applied in this study is a qualitative approach. The data collection is characterized by interviews conducted with seven school counselors. Previous research has shown that the professional role as school counselor is unclear, and that the profession lacks precise policies. In research studies, Lipsky's theory of grassroots bureaucrats has been used, where we also have chosen to use the informal and formal scope. Through analysis, the result has shown that several of the school counselors perceive their professional role as undefined. Some of the school counselors said that they appreciate the unclear role because it provides them with an extensive and flexible mandate within their professional role. Furthermore the result shows that the school counselors perceive that some laws, such as the confidentiality law for example, limits their professional mandate. In the realm of available resources, the result has shown that most school counselors experience insufficient resources, often in the form of time and lack of competence development. Overall the school counselors experience limitations within their role and there are thus opportunities for development.

The school counselor is the person who works with social work in the school. A school counselor's assignment is multifaceted, with duties playing a central role in health promotion and prevention work against for example mental illness, bullying and abusive treatment. The aim of this study has been to increase understanding of how school counselors and principals perceive the school counselor's assignment and the limitations that affect it. Our study emanates from eight semistructured qualitative interviews with school counselors and principals which were analyzed using sentence concentration. The results show that the assignment is perceived as vague where job descriptions are unclear. This in turn affects the school counselors' discretion. School counselors feel that their role is "fuzzy" and that there are unreasonable expectations from other professions. Furthermore, the results show that the main factors that control and limit the assignment are laws, regulations, guidelines, lack of resources such as time and finances, and the expectations of the principal and other professionals. Our conclusion is that school counselors need a clearer job description in order to clarify their assignment and their role at school. The school counselors described a desire to be able to devote more time to preventive work in order to be able to work more proactively than reactively.

The aim of this study was to examine school counselors' experience working with high school students' psychosocial health during spring 2020 when school was online. The empirical data consists of qualitative interviews with nine school counselors. The result showed that school counselors used their discretion at a greater extent to help and support their students during spring 2020. They also said that the online communication made it easier for some students to contact the counselors. The school counselors said that there were some students that dislike the online way of communicating and in these cases the school counselors made other arrangements for them. Furthermore, the school counselors could see that virtual learning had an impact on the students psychosocial health mainly due to the lack of everyday routines and social contact with other students. The results of the interviews were analyzed using the theoretical concept of discretion and the professional meeting. The conclusion states that school counselors need to incorporate digital communication in their everyday work even when school is not online to be able to meet the needs of every student. It also shows the great impact school has on students' psychosocial health.

Previous research has shown there is a lack of studies made about school counselors and their work with secondary school students, especially in a Swedish context. Although the research is limited, there are a few studies who can show that there is a distancing of students towards school counselors and students seeking help, but there also seems to be a lack of direction that makes school counselors work tasks to appear unclear. Previous research shows that there seem to be a few explanatory factors that may impact this behavior of students such as a lack of trust, a fear that confidentiality will be compromised as well as other people's opinions. The purpose of this study was to describe, analyze and find possible connections between secondary students' knowledge and attitudes towards school counselors and counselors' work tasks, and also secondary students' tendency to seek help. The study was carried out by a quantitative questionnaire study with focus on two different schools in two different municipalities. Empirical material was collected through google forms and participants were asked to fill out the survey online. We visited a few schools who were interested in participating in the questionnaire. The reason for this was because we had an idea of an increasing number of participants by visiting schools and informing them about this study and its purpose, and also to be able to answer any questions they might have. The results were analyzed through a univariate and a bivariate analysis and by using the Statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS). The results showed that students had a rather positive attitude towards school counselors, but still tend to not seek help if needed, which can be due to a lack of trust to the counselor.

En kvalitativ studie med utgångspunkt i den ohälsa som är dokumenterad bland hbt-ungdomar där skolan pekas ut som en betydande arena. Syftet var att undersöka hur gymnasieskolor i förhållande till för skolan rådande styrdokument valde att konkretisera det förebyggande arbetet med värdegrundsfrågor kopplade till sexualitet och könsidentitet/-uttryck samt undersöka skolkuratorers attityder, normer och upplevelser i förhållande till detta arbete. Empirin bestod av en fokusgruppsintervju med skolkuratorer samt en litteraturstudie med grund i ett urval av likabehandlingsplaner. Slutsatser blev att heteronormativitet präglar skolkuratorers arbete med dessa frågor och att det förebyggande arbetet ej upplevs prioriterat. Avseende transpersoner aktualiseras detta i relation till att diskrimineringsgrunden könsöverskridande identitet och uttryck ej hade ett omfattande skydd av diskrimineringslagen. Vidare framkom det en avsaknad av konkretisering i förhållande till vad som krävdes kompetensmässigt för att en skola skall kunna jobba förebyggande på ett enhetligt och likvärdigt sätt. En avsaknad av ett normkritiskt perspektiv men även behovet av det, vilket gav sken av att satsningar inom detta område ej är tillräckliga blev studiens slutsats i helhet. / A qualitative study based in the documented amongst LGBT-youth in Sweden, where the school has been pointed out as an arena of impact. This study's purpose have been to investigate how comprehensive upper secondary schools choose to concrete the preemptive duties concerning fundamental values, in relation to sexualitet, gender identity and gender expression. Focus has also been on school welfare officers and their attitudes, norms and experiences concerning these duties. The empirism have consisted of one focus group interview with school welfare officers and a study of relevant literature based in a selection of "equal treatment plans".  Conclusions have been that heterosexual normativity characterizes the work of the elfare officers concerning these matters, and that the preemptive duties are not experienced as a priority. In reference to transgender this can distincly be seen in the fact that the ground of discrimination "transgender identity and/or expression" does not have an extensive protection in the law of discrimination. Further on an absence of concretization has been revealed, concerning the competence required for schools to be able to work preemptive in a unitary and equivalent manner. An absence of a norm critical perspective and the need for it, as well as that the current investments in this area in not enough, has been the final conclusions of this study.