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This article presents some major research themes and findings of the leading Swedish research group in the field of literacy in history. The informal and encouraging leadership of Professor Egil Johansson was of vital importance to the creativity and productivity of the group. Prior to 1985, a few large projects on Swedish alphabetization were closely inter-related to the development of methods and resources. After 1985, research benefitted from the competence represented by the Demographic Data Base, the Swedish Archival Information, and the Research Archives. The thematic variety of the second period was promoted by the multi-disciplinary composition of the research group. Religious instruction was the primary focus of interest, and cross-cultural, multi-confessional, and comparative aspects were incorporated. The international orientation became a constitutive characteristic, contextualizing the Swedish Lutheran experience. Literacy skills, textual history, literacy practices, and print culture signify the general evolution of themes.

In the organization and ideology of the Lutheran state churches, Tim Knudsen has identified the roots of universalism in the Nordic welfare states. This article applies a similar perspective to the aims and contents of early modern Nordic popular education. Historiographically, universalism was emphasized by Egil Johansson, who recognized the universal aim of Christian teaching as the prime mover of Swedish alphabetization. The present article tries to problematize this perspective by demonstrating the long-term divergence of Swedish bourgeois and popular print cultures, representing parallel processes of secularization and christianization, and by discussing particular meanings of parts of the alleged universal early modern reading culture, viz. reading as a vehicle of Swedishness in colonial America and religious identity in Northern Sweden, respectively. The elementary school is identified as a major instrument of homogenizing reading culture, and the article concludes by indicating universalism as a living legacy in Swedish educational policy.