This essay is about the research development of Swedish teacher education (TE) with a particular focus on Umeå University during the 1990s. The historical background consists of the reform proposals in the field of schools and TE presented in the late 1940s by the 1946 School Commission and then carefully and slowly implemented the coming decades after numerous governmental investigations. The aim captures the question why it took so long time to integrate TE into the Swedish enlarged higher education system. One explanation that presented relates to the fact that TE did not receive its own academic structures when it was integrated in 1977 and that it was subordinated to the good will of the established university disciplines to develop research and postgraduate education with relevance to TE. Another explanation is that the incorporation of vocational education into university structures generally challenges the historical independence of the independent disciplines and the right to define their own research, while at the same time they became more dependent on political decisions. The order of discourse that prevails within the university is based on the university disciplines that constitute power base at the university, which is unreflectively traded by theuniversity’s top management, not infrequently recruited from a natural science discipline. The conclusion is that a new order of discourse should be built up before TE together with other vocational programs, fully becomes a natural part of the Swedish university structures.