This study is based on six semi- structured interviews. The interviews have been conducted with six counsellors on six different schools who work with students from grade seven to last year in high school. Five of the schools are located in a large municipality and one school is located in a small municipality, all in Sweden. The aim of the study was to find out which are the main factors contributing to the stress of adolescents, from a counsellor's perspective and also examine if there are any gender differences when it comes to stress adolescents stress.  

The collected material has undergone a thematic analysis. The thematization resulted in four themes, which the counsellors expressed that they considered to be the main factors to stress. The themes are  grading pressure, home environment, media stress and personal factors. These four themes are all linked to an over theme which are referred to asthe unachievable goals.  Based on the theme of personal factors, stress from a gender perspective will be discussed as a part of the theme, and how the result in this study about gender relate to previous research on the subject.