Den virtuella skolgården

Sammanfattning: This study aims to explore how school counsellors, working at middle schools, experience their work and their professional role in relation to how young people at the ages between 13-15 years use social media. The mapping of young people’s usage of social media tells us that they mainly use it to communicate by writing messages but also by sending pictures. Since the communication and socialisation among the teens have become more virtual, we ask ourselves how this affects their psychosocial health and development and if the school counsellor’s work and professional role therefore has changed. To answer these questions we have interviewed eleven school counsellors about how they look upon the usage of social media among the teens and also if they experience any change in their work. The theoretical perspectives in order to understand the phenomenon are Erik Eriksson’s development theory with particular focus on the stage ”Adolescence” and professional theory. We’ve found out that the methods of working concerning this phenomenon differs from school to school, but that the view of it is the same - that the usage of social media is increasing, and that it entails new challenges for the school counsellors. How and why teens use social media has both advantages and disadvantages on their psychosocial health and development, according to the school counsellors. We found out that the main thing they all found important in relation to the teens usage of social media was the work of values and equal treatment. T he school counsellors said that it is important to talk to the teens about how to use of social media, but it is equally important to cooperate with other stakeholders to find methods how to work with this phenomenon.