Att möta digitalt våld i skolan : En kvalitativ studie om skolkuratorers arbete med digitalt våld bland elever i högstadiet.

Sammanfattning

This study examines how school counselors perceive their assignment in relation to cyber violence and how they deal with it in everyday school life. It addresses how school counselors work preventively and remedially, and how school counselors experience and interpret their discretion in working with cyber violence. Despite previous research showing that cyber violence can have consequences for young people's schooling, safety and mental health, there is limited knowledge about how school counselors perceive and design their work in this area. The study was conducted using qualitative interviews with eight school counselors from different secondary schools in Sweden (grades 7-9). The data was analyzed using thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns and themes. The results show that the preventive work mainly consists of efforts aimed at groups, such as making the school mobile-free and spreading knowledge and information to students, guardians and staff. However, the results also showed that the preventive work consists of building relationships with students. The remedial work consists mainly of conversations with students. Furthermore, the study results show that the majority consider that there is a lot of room for discretion in relation to cyber violence. The main limitation is the lack of clarity in responsibility and tasks. The results also show an inherent ambiguity in cyber violence, where both victims and perpetrators can be difficult for the school counselor to identify. It can also be difficult to know what is true or false when violence occurs on digital platforms. Finally, the study contributes with a deeper understanding of how school counselors perceive their task in relation to digital violence, how they handle this in everyday school life and its importance for practical social work.