Det här är min skolgård : tillvägagångssätt för medbestämmande och ökad trivsel i skolmiljön

Abstract: For several years has there been a leading line from the government and the municipalities in Sweden to invest in schools and school grounds. The outdoor environment of schools has been rediscovered and given a greater importance. Investments have been made both practically with reconstruction and in a research context. Although, my work started with an assumption that these investments were mainly made at primary schools, and that secondary schools were set aside. The thesis This is my schoolyard. Creating a pleasant outdoor environment through participation discusses how these investments have reached secondary schools. The main intention for this thesis has been to investigate how the pupils can participate and become involved with making a difference in their outdoor environment. It also discusses the issue of how participation can inspire the pupils to use it more frequently. Everyone has a right to infl uence what their surroundings should be like. Unfortunately, the adolescents are involved on a very low degree. The school can therefore be an important way for them to be involved in democratic processes. Process; The thesis is based on cooperation with Stavsborgsskolan, a secondary school in the municipality of Nacka. Together with the pupils and employees of Stavsborgskolan and Nacka Municipality, I have investigated how this process can be carried out. By arranging workshops have I investigated how the pupils use their school grounds today and how they would like to be using them. The work has been made in cooperation with the landscape architect student Julia Åberg. By using the material from the workshops she has created a design of the school grounds of Stavsborgsskolan infl uenced by the ideas of the pupils. I been inspired by literature, predominantly concerning children’s participation in the buildup of the workshops. My visits to three different schools has also aided my further work. There I have met and talked to pupils, a headmaster and a teacher. All of them with experience of a schoolyard project. A visit to the municipality of Malmö, who runs the project Gröna skolgårdar, was as well a source of inspiration for my work to come. The choice of schools that I visited was made with the idea that I wanted to meet people who were in different stages of the transformation. Workshops at Stavsborgskolan; The workshops that took place at Stavsborgsskolan were divided in two parts. The fi rst workshop involved the use of the Walk-Through Evaluation and the collage workshop and was conducted together with pupils. Walk-Through Evaluation is an established method, and it has mainly been used to evaluate newly built housing areas (de Laval, 1997). I have modifi ed this version to make it appropriate for work together with adolescents. At Stavsborgsskolan the Walk- Through Evaluation was used to survey what the pupils thought of their school grounds. The pupils would mark good and bad places, and places that they would like to change on a map. The collage workshop aimed to get the pupils to create a collage. The collage would contain their ideas of what they wanted to do at the schoolgrounds and what sense they wanted to create there. The Walk-Through Evaluation gave a dismal picture of the school grounds and the pupils expressed their thoughts about it with words like “boring” and “ugly”. They also expressed that the school grounds did not offer any activities. Many of them came with ideas of how the school grounds could develop for the better. The collage workshop resulted in ideas about what character the pupils wanted in their school grounds. “Create a cosy feeling”, “many different activities to choose from” and “add something that stands out” were some of the wishes the pupils had. After the fi rst workshop Julia Åberg had one week of sketching before a proposal of a design would be performed at the next workshop. The second workshop was based on questions prepared by Julia Åberg and I. The questions were a base for discussions in smaller groups. Expect for the pupils did the employees of Stavsborgsskolan and representatives from Nacka municipality participate. We started the day by letting the pupils retell the fi rst workshop for the others. Then Julia showed her design proposal and the participants got to tell their opinions. The design was very much appreciated by everyone and they came with valuable critique. At last we investigated the use each one can have in this project and similar ones in the future. The second workshop was the end of mine and Julia’s work at the school. But both the pupils and the adults came with many ideas of how they could work further with this project. The pupils came with the idea to start their own project group and engage more pupils to join them. Many of their ideas were easy and cheap to realize. It could easily be fi xed by themselves and with some help from the caretaker of the school. By organizing it could the whole school be involved. The representatives from the municipality of Nacka thought that it was their responsibility to extend the information of the workshop so it could be reached by the politicians. Main findings; My aim with my thesis was to investigate how pupils can participate in making a difference in their outdoor environment. The workshops at Stavsborgsskolan were successful and can be used as a source of reference to be adapted and used in other similar projects.. Adapting the workshops for working with adolescents has been necessary to make their results useful in the next step. Involving adolescents in participation has shown to be important for their selfconfi dence with the fact that someone is listening to them. To design school grounds based on the ideas of the pupils has shown to be signifi cant for their sense of belonging. As they have been a part in creating the school grounds is it also a better suited environment for them. Thereby is it of greater use and hopefully more time will be spent outdoors. It also prevents vandalism that otherwise can be a great issue for the schools. The fi nal conclusion is; yes, it is important to involve the pupils! Adapted school grounds are as important as having school grounds at all.