Skolkuratorns yrkesroll och handlingsutrymme

The purpose of this study was to examine the school counselors’ role in school, how they perceive their role and how much discretion they have. Who are the school staffs that can affect the counselors work? This is a qualitative study where we interviewed ten low-and high school counselors. The results showed that school counselors continuously have dialogues with students, parents, staff members, the principal and other authorities or organizations. A huge number of the conversations are about counseling and what support that the school counselor can provide. Some school counselors have also administrative tasks and almost all of them work with students and classes in general in the school. All counselors were satisfied with their work, but several respondents mentioned the lack of time as a constricting factor. Those describing due to lack of resources on school had many school counselor to work on two or three schools at a time. People think that school counselors would have been able to do a better work at school if they only worked at just one school. The majority of the counselors felt that they had a good influence on their work at school, but that the lack of time was the greatest negative factor. Respondents described also that regular contacts and cooperation with other actors, as the principal, parents and other authorities and organizations is a promotion factor at work