The author's purpose is to identify, compare, and evaluate the legal basis for educational systems in five Scandanavian countries. For identifying purposes, he groups educational data for each country into six categories: status, pressure, response, evaluation, administration system, and school system. He then provides, in the major portion of the document, a classification scheme which codes data, based on educational laws effective to January 1, 1968, according to country, reference source, type or level of education, and particular emphasis. Data from this scheme are intended to be fed into a systems model which enables an investigator to test the consistency and efficiency of educational systems. The model is used to compare an educational system's internal and external parts and permits variables to be lined up within the internal part under operational objectives, status-role position, and status-role performance, and within the external part under educational values, school and administrative system, and education as a social system. In his analysis the author also accounts for four cultural aspects relative to education--historic, political, social, and economic. Among the author's findings is that differences in educational development are related to the power of the Minister of Education to initiate changes and to the emphasis placed on educational research and financing. (LP)