This paper examines educational reform and practices in Sweden from 1940 to the present. There are three major sections. The first section discusses the first generation of school reforms from 1940 up to the end of the sixties. Section two examines the second generation of school reforms which started in the late sixties and are still going on. The Swedish school reforms can be described in terms of two types of cycles: the reform cycle and the adjustment cycle. The first generation of reforms aimed at an integrated, comprehensive organization of the school system on all levels. This was the basis for the second generation of reforms, which aimed at integrating the school into the community and adjusting resources to local demands, thereby partly decentralizing the school system. The consequence of the reforms has been that their primary ideological motive has been built mainly into the outer organization of the school system and the overall goals but has not been absorbed in the detailed syllabus. The third section of the paper looks at the newest and most exciting ideas that have emerged in Sweden during the last decade. For example, in the new curricula there has been a shift from curriculum units to a concept or thematic approach. This means that for each subject the central concepts to be mastered must be defined and the teaching must center around these concepts. (Author/RM)