In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, and particularly those of the spring of 2020, increased attention has been afforded to racism in its diverse forms and at different levels in Norwegian society. Researchers and public intellectuals have paid particular attention to structural, institutional, and everyday forms of racism (Orupabo, 2021; 2022; VG, 2021). This shift in public discourse has impacted educational settings, and puts pressure on school leaders and staff to develop systematic strategies on diversity, inclusion and ensuring a racism-free environment. Research indicates that taking these problems seriously in school contexts is particularly important because schools are the arenas where children and youth experience the most racism (Norwegian Centre Against for Racism 2017; UNICEF 2022). While there is a growing body of research in Norway on racism on a societal level and in specific institutions such as schools, focus has tended to be placed on how racism is discussed in classrooms, or students’ and teachers’ perceptions of racism (Svendsen, 2014; Myrebøe, 2021). Less attention has been directed towards how staff at Norwegian schools negotiate understandings of racism and coordinate practices on and against it. Moreover, less attention has been paid to how the student-centered services, who have responsibilities for ensuring students’ psychosocial well-being, engage in such work. This paper contributes with insights on how such staff engage in the institutional, discursive and emotional labor of: (1) identifying that the psychosocial environment is lacking, particularly for students with migrant backgrounds (2) develop strategies for coordinating a response to these lacks (3) tackle challenges and resistance they encounter towards coordinated and systematic efforts throughout institutional levels for an inclusive school environment. Drawing on data material produced by the first author as part of a prolonged field study in connection with her doctoral research, the analysis starts from following counselor experiences. Moving from this, the authors map the relations this counselor engages into further inclusion and to protect and enhance valuation of diversity: this includes the work of documenting student experiences of racism and of presenting these to school leaders with the purpose of taking coordinated action. In this work counselors invest considerable emotional labor (Hochschild 1983) in navigating diverging social moods (Ahmed 2014) and discourses on racism in ways that are constructive to their goals.

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