"Det handlar om vad du är bekväm med". Att samtala om sexualitet med ungdomar.

Sammanfattning: The aim of the study was to create an understanding of whether and how social workers converse on the topic of sexuality with youths. Further aspects studied were which factors social workers experienced to be challenging and enabling for these conversations and also differences regarding the gender of the youth. The empirical material is made out of semistructured interviews with social service workers and professionals who work with treatment of youths. The data has been analysed with the theory symbolic interactionism. The result of the study shows that social workers do talk about sexuality with youths, but in varying extent. Challenges expressed were for instance questions about secrecy and the difficulty of keeping information from the parents of the youth, as well as who was in the room at the time of the meeting. Enabling aspects were knowledge and personal interest in the subject. Regarding the question of how the topic of sexuality was brought up the answers varied. Some preferred to ask questions about sexuality straight out, while others preferred to ask questions about TV-shows and relationships to later get in to the topic of sexuality. All informants aimed to be neutral in the meeting with the youth, regardless of gender. However, examples were made of how differences were made on basis of what gender the youth had. The main perception was that girls were seen as victims while boys were seen as perpetrators. This had effects on how the conversations were conducted and several of the informants spoke about reflections regarding how these perceptions could lead to missing those who did not fit into the perceptions.