Skolbibliotekets skamvrå? En studie av skolbiblioteket som resurs i tjejers informationssökningar kring sexualitet

Sammanfattning: This master’s thesis presents a review of high school girls’ experiences of how information seeking concerning sexuality is handled and given space in the school library. In Swedish high schools, sex education is integrated into a number of subject areas rather than taught as an independent subject. This is reflected in school libraries’ collections, which often prioritize subjects that are stated in the regulatory documents and not ‘secondary’ subjects such as sexual health and other topics related to sexuality. Changes may be ahead. As a consequence of the metoo movement, the government has presented a proposal for increased funding for sex education. This proposal raises questions about how school libraries might respond to increased focus on sex education as they are increasingly being integrated into the curriculum. The aim of this study is, therefore, to examine the extent to which high school students use and experience the school library as a resource in information seeking processes related to sexuality. The study takes a phenomenological approach and presents how a school library and its activities are described and perceived by the school librarian and seven female students in focus groups. The theoretical lens of the study is based in Erving Goffman's theories of regional behavior and Carol C. Kuhlthau's theoretical framework for information retrieval as a process of constructions. These are used to map out the school library's role as a developer of students’ information literacy. The result shows that school libraries’ regulatory documents form the basis for which activities are given most focus in the school library, which today limits how young women's information seeking processes concerning sexuality are given space in the school library. The result also illustrates that the young women are mainly using the internet to retrieve information about sexuality, but also clearly distinguish between information retrieval and valuation of sources depending on whether the information is to be used in school work or for private use. The school library is a resource that the young women use for school work, as they regard the school library as a small academic library of scholarly nature, which excludes searches concerning sexuality as a result of decentness standards. This study wishes to highlight the possibility of the school library's mission to expand in relation to sex education. During the focus groups, however, it was clear that such an initiative must come from the library staff and not from the students, and that sex education as a subject must in turn be given more space in the overall regulatory documents, in order to also be granted more space in Swedish school libraries in the long run.