Skolkuratorers arbete med elever med utländsk bakgrund

Sammanfattning

The aim of this study is to examine school counselors experiences of working with students with foregin background. Based on school counselors' experiences we wanted to draw attention to the students' social situation and well-being as well as how they view their role and competence in working with these students. Conducting of findings was done with a qualitative approach and through semi-structured interviews with eight school counselors from different municipalities in southern Sweden. The findings showed that there are different circumstances that affect students' well-being such as the language, socio-economic factors, the relationship between the children and family as well as feeling safe in school. Furthermore, this study showed that school counselors do not have a particular way of working with these students, however they had a holistic perspective which allowed them to adapt their work after the students' needs. The school counselors experienced that it is challenging to cooperate with the parents. In addition to this we found that school counselors took a role as informers while working with students' parents as well as they evolved new knowledge while working with this group.