När oron kokar över - En kvalitativ studie om lärares syn på anmälningsskyldigheten

Abstract Authors: Nils Olsson & Sebastian Wiberg Title: When the concern boils over. A qualitative study of teachers’ views of the notification requirements/mandatory reporting in high schools. Supervisor: Mikael Sandgren Assessor: Elizabeth Martinell Barfoed This paper has the aim to find out how teachers reason about the mandatory reporting law. This is interesting because it can be difficult to determine if child abuse occurs in a situation and the law says that the notification should be made immediately when the teacher suspects child abuse. We have conducted semi-structured interviews with junior highschool teachers on their thoughts before the decision to make a notification to the social services. We also asked questions on how they relate to the child, the child's family and other colleagues at the school. We have used Scott and Lyman (2013) theory of accounts and reached certain conclusions. We have been able to interpret two different approaches to the mandatory reporting law called ”the rapporting teacher” and ”the notifying teacher". These depict the difference in what teachers do with a suspicion of child abuse. We have also been able to draw conclusions in the flaws of cooperation between teacher colleagues can be linked with the lack of training in this area. We can also see how the parents can be a reason for the teachers to refrain from making a notification. These are some of the conclutions made in this paper. Keywords: Mandatory reporting law, child abuse, accounts, teacher.