This essay outlines the major changes in Swedish educational policy that occurred during the 20-year period from 1976 to 1996, with a focus on key issues in the development of the comprehensive school. Effects of the policy changes on Swedish curriculum research over the last 20 years are examined. Educational researchers neglected or were slow to respond to changes in the educational system that resulted from the breakdown of the Swedish model and dismantling of the welfare state. Other conclusions are that the feminist perspective is absent in curriculum research in Sweden; there is a conflict between decentralization and educational goals; the "subject didactical" studies represented a new way to study the relations between curriculum and teaching/learning; and there is a need to develop educational theory in general and curriculum theory in particular. (Contains 26 endnotes and 109 references.) (LMI)