The Nordic countries welfare state development, “The Nordic model”,  were similar in the case that after the second world war there was a time of many school reforms where democracy and equal education were a vision in educational policy.[1] Instead of the system of parallel schools in Sweden, with several forms of elementary schools (ex Folkskola) and secondary schools (ex Läroverk) for boys and for girls, the goal was to have one 9 year compulsory school. 

There are, and have been, different motives and different political ideas from both the public as well as between and within the political parties, at the national, and municipal levels, regarding the school and the education system. Even if political decisions do affect changes, policies should not be overestimated. In research on the relationship between education policy and the local practices it is not uncommon that the focus has been that a central state power has drafted laws and regulations that local municipalities have to follow. The focus has been that changes regarding the school system have occurred because politicians have proposed them. However, changes are not as simple as political decisions. Many different factors affect changes.[2] In this dissertation, implementation and policy processes should be understand as actions, or non-actions, decisions or non-decisions, consciously or not consciously made at local (municipal) level, based on local circumstances and by various local actors. 

Ideas of a new school system and reforms to bring an equivalent education standard together with the development of the school system in Storfors and Arvika, both smaller municipalities in the county of Värmland, are in focus in this research. Archive material from the two municipalities' primary school boards, municipal council and local newspapers shows that the development of the school system in both municipalities has similarities but also differences. When the development of the school system, from the parallel school system to one compulsory school, put in a local context, it makes it clear that different factor and actors have influenced the development of the school system, both changes, decisions and actions implemented and those not implemented. 

In a wider perspective, the research concerns how municipalities handled the modernization and democratization (equal education) that permeated national politics during the second half of the 20th century, the intention is primarily to broaden the image of the relation between the state and the local, not to compare the two municipalities against each other. 

In answer to state-centered history writing, we need research from local perspectives to find out the role of the local in the growth of the school system. A historical analysis of municipalities handling policy processes within the school system makes an important contribution to the research field. It is also important considering today's debates about municipalities' role as executors of decisions and municipal self-government, discussions about the relationship between the rural and the urban, about the countryside in the shadow of globalization and relations between the state and municipality regarding school and school development. 

References 

Alfred Oftedal Telhaug , Odd Asbjørn Mediås & Petter Aasen (2006) The Nordic Model in Education: Education as part of the political system in the last 50 years, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 50:3, 245-283, DOI: 10.1080/00313830600743274

M. Buchardt, P. Markkola, & H. Valtonen (Eds.) (2013) Education and the making of the Nordic welfare states. In Education, State and Citizenship (pp. 7-30). NordWel Studies in Historical Welfare State Research, 4. Helsinki, Finland: University of Helsinki and

Larsson, J. (2008). Folkhemmet och det europeiska huset : svensk välfärdsstat i omvandling. [Folkhemmet and the European House: Swedish welfare state in transformation ]Stockholm : Hjalmarson & Högberg, 2008.

SOU 1974:53 (1974). Skolans inre arbete. [State official investigations: The inner work of schools]I: Utbildningsdepartementet (red.). Stockholm: Skolöverstyrelsen, Statens offentliga utredningar. 

Sundberg, J., Sjöblom, S. & Wörlund, I. (2011). Kommunala folkhemmet: Uppbyggnad, de gyllene åren, nedmontering.The [Municipal folkhem: Construction, the golden years, dismantling] Stockholm: Academic Press Sweden.

Storfors kommunarkiv [Storfors municipal archive]

Arvika kommunarkiv [Arvika municipal archive]

   [1] See example: Alfred Oftedal Telhaug , Odd Asbjørn Mediås & Petter Aasen (2006) and M. Buchardt, P. Markkola, & H. Valtonen (Eds.) (2013)[2] Westberg 2014 s 305-307. Also the historian Björn Tropp (1999)have showed that the welfare politic was realised and influenced by local circumstances and that the local welfare could differ depending on municipal. The same with (Larsson  2008,ss 98 f) and (SOU 1974:53  1974; Sundberg et al.  2011, ss 12 och 243)