The purpose of this examination was to investigate the attitude towards public service among students at Lerums gymnasium. During the pandemic adolescence turned to public service in faith of their independence and impartial news and information. The trust in public service increased during the crisis due to its availability and people had confidence in their neutrality and responsibility as a nonpartisan establishment. The aspiration for this study was to examine whether or not the students had faith in public service and if their political position had any value to their stance.
In order to achieve this, a quantitative as well as a qualitative method was conducted. Through a quantitative survey sent out to every student in year three at Lerums gymnasium, it was possible to accumulate an overview on the students stance on public service. To investigate the relation between the approach to public service and the students political views the answers from the survey were sorted into three groups. The different political identifications were sorted by the left, the right and the middle group, all based on the political parties from the swedish government. The qualitative method was executed through interviews with three students from year three with different political views. To achieve a qualitative investigation, the students were asked several thorough questions on their attitude towards public service.
The result of the study pointed out that the many students shared a common misconception about public service. However, the trust for the institution was high and most students found public service to be important although the tendency of viewing public service as a politically partial institution was trending, especially within the more conservative group. The conclusion based is that many students are not aware of the true purpose of public service and their political identification has a strong relation to their point of view.