Research topic/Aim: Our case is Sweden with its comprehensive welfare state education. This case have been in rapid change in education during the last decades, including worldwide restructuring measures such as deregulation, privatization and governing by school performances. Our aim is to analyze education as part of a modernization project based on the development of science as well as on democracy. Our approach to this is analyses of the public opinion in the Swedish welfare state in relation to the current context of Sweden and what its educational system offers. In order to realize these ambitions, we put forwards the following research questions: • What confidence and discontent in education is presented by the public opinion? How is this related to educational levels and political preferences among individuals? • To what extent is there confidence or mistrust in research in different fields – including educational research – and to what extent is this connected with educational levels and social positions among the individuals? Given our interest in modernization of education we have a special interest in how individuals in in teaching professions assess educational research. In order to sharpen the analysis of current trends in education modernization and educational research we made special analyses of the public opinion on the uses of large scale assessments of educational performances. Theoretical frameworks: Trust has become an important factor for understanding operations of governance and educational reforms and variances of success over countries. Given the present context of rapid social and political transformations and ongoing restructuring of higher education and research, the level and objects of trust thus becomes an important indicator of possibilities and readiness of change. Methodology/research design: We have chosen to analyze the views of the public opinion considering trust in science as such and for the eventual betterment of society, with a special focus on educational science. Data are obtained from the SOM-Institute survey 2014 sent to a national sample of 3 400 individuals, out of which 54 percent answered the questions – in sum 1 634 persons. Findings: In the public opinion the confidence in the school is not very high, and most individuals take very critical stances to current developments in schooling. Regarded as indicators of perceptions of education in a modernizing welfare state, the results present somewhat of a crisis in trust of schooling. This is further underlined by the finding that individuals with lower levels of education are more discontent with recent developments in education. Of special interest is the finding that the right wing populists – often in low paid jobs – are most dissatisfied with what education can offer them. Trust in educational research – especially among those in teaching professions – is also indicating that the modernization processes in education is at work. Stated otherwise, modernization of education and schooling seems to correspond to predominant distribution of resources in society, and universalistic claims about modernization seem to be contradicted by its premises and practices. Relevance for Nordic Educational Research: There is a large need for analyzing the current political situation and its politics of knowledge and educational policies in the Swedish welfare state and in similar welfare state contexts, such as the Nordic countries.