Using examples of school change, this document discusses both Swedish experiences with local educational development and theories of schools and change. An introduction gives background information on Sweden's schools and its parlimentary activities on education. Section 2 reviews the history of local educational development, especially development activities of the 1940's and 1950's. Models of school reform and development are explored in section 3, which notes the parallel growth in Sweden of educational research and inservice training and cites problems with the research-and-development model of social change. Section 4 describes examples of local school development, including the establishment of education development centers; experiments on student, teacher, and parent involvement in decision-making in Uppsala schools; national studies to create models of school change; experimental development programs on a regional basis; and projects to increase cooperation between research and inservice training. The final section considers theoretical questions about Sweden's changing emphasis (from experiments to changes in everyday school activities), the use of school change to further general educational theory, and recent local school developments led by teachers. (RW)