According to an influential narrative in Swedish educationalhistoriography, the Swedish educational system underwent a drastic change during the 1990s, moving towards a more individualistic and marketised system. Without denying the relevance of this perspective, this article argues that we can trace antecedents to the reforms undertaken inthe 1990s far back in post-war education policies. It maintains that the endeavour to democratise the educational system during the post waryears when radicalised, started to counteract these democratic tendencies. Applying what French historian François Hartog names ‘regimes of historicity’ as an analytical tool, it argues that a politically pertinent shift took place in the 1970s. Since then, an increasingly stronger emphasis on the present at the expense of both past and future has contributed to an undermining of the centralised comprehensive school. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group