Pojkar och stress: en kvalitativ studie om hur pojkar och fritidsledare diskuterar och tänker om stress hos pojkar

Sammanfattning: The aim of this paper is to examine how boys in grade nine experience and handle stress, to find reasons why stress occur and what help the boys can get to handle stress in a good way. Our supervisor was Gunilla Lindén. In our study we used qualitative interviews to answer these questions. We interviewed four fifteen- to sixteen-year-old boys and two recreation in-structors. We also conducted a group interview with the boys. To analyze our material we used the ecology of cognitive development and developmental adolescence in the developmental psychology. Our results show that school is the main reason why the boys were stressed. They had homework and schoolwork and they had to perform well, for their own sake, but also to make their parents proud of them. Another stress factor for the boys was their spare time activities since they felt that they did not have the time for it because school took so much of their time. It was also very important for the boys to perform well in these activities. Their friends had enormous influence on them, and it was very important for them not to stand out too much, e.g. as regards clothes and values. The boys handled stress in different ways. Some of the boys got irritated, others got depressed. Some of the boys took out their anger on material things or siblings.