Untapped potential? a scoping review exploring school social work in Norwegian primary schools

Abstract

The Norwegian Education Act safeguards children’s right to a supportive psychosocial school environment, increasingly recognized as a pivotal arena for early intervention. In this endeavour, interdisciplinary collaboration plays a crucial role, and school social workers have recently emerged as important professionals in this regard, although their roles lack clear definition. This scoping review, guided by Arksey and O’Malley’s framework and the PRISMA checklist, explores the terminology describing school social workers’ position in Norwegian primary schools, and their roles and responsibilities, and potential impact. Both published and grey literature were included as relevant data material, supported by stakeholder consultation. We comprehensively searched 11 databases, in addition to government websites, resulting in the inclusion of 14 research reports, 4 research articles and 12 master’s theses. Our findings reveal the complexity of school social workers’ roles, hampered by the absence of legal mandates. This ambiguity leads to role variability, hindering the full utilization of their competences and fostering person-specific positions. Consequently, the psychosocial support provided in Norwegian primary schools lacks consistency and optimization. Clearer delineation of school social workers’ roles and responsibilities is imperative to unlock their full potential in creating favourable psychosocial school environments.

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