From the 1950s to the 1970s a mass education system took shape in all Nordic countries. This extended development of unified schooling have been an important part of the framing of the gradual widening of the discipline of education – pedagogikk – to a broad interdisciplinary field – utdanningsvitenskap - including academic, professional as well as policy oriented knowledge interests. In the paper key changes in these gradual scientific and professional differentiation processes in Norway and Sweden are analyzed and compared. Focus will be on interrelations of research policy initiatives, key cultural, social and didactical research networks, and academic and professional forms of higher education programs. Three foci will be on: • The supplement of behaviour sciences by cultural and social research and first initiatives to establish research funding for a more interdisciplinary school research from the 1950s. • The varieties of ruptures and discontinuities from the 1970s. • Investigation of the combined scientific and professional dynamics behind the hybridization of the last decades. Earlier research by the author on lines of development in the Norwegian case will be contrasted with studies of the educational field and educational research in Sweden. Starting areas of interest in this comparative work will be to get a broader understanding of the more international knowledge profile of educational research in Sweden, and the more marked discontinuities, oppositional traits, and weaker international orientation on the Norwegian side.