Historically Sweden had a confessional teaching of religion in school, that is the starting point ofthis essay. In the Swedish school system the students have the right to believe whatever they wantbut they will be introduced to different beliefs in the subject religion. Even the church focuses onthe individuals own beliefs during confirmation. This essay explores if there is something in aconfessional teaching that contributes to the students' knowledge in religion as a school subject.Therefore a quantitative study have been performed. The study aimed to investigate the grades ofthe students that participated in confirmation and how the grades changed after the confirmation. Italso examined if there are any gender differences as earlier research proclaims that girls nowadaysperform better than boys in all school subjects. As a factor, gender seems to be the most critical one.The study was a case study with students in the ninth grade in a specific municipality. A comparisonhave been done between the grades in the subjects of religion, history and mathematics. This wasdone to be able to determine if it is the teaching done in confirmation that is the influential factor. The study showed that gender is a more influential factor then the confirmation. Though in thegroup of girls that have been confirmated, there is a clear tendency that confirmation leads to higherand raised grades in all three subjects. The result for the boys is harder to analyse. The main reasonis that the group is small. It is much more common for girls to get confirmated then it is for boys.In conclusion, it is not possible to show a clear tendency that confirmation gives high and/or raisedgrades in the subject religion. Still there is a clear tendency that those who have been confirmed gethigher and raised grades in all the subjects that have been examined in this study. A possibleexplanation for this is that the confirmation participants strengthens as individuals.

Using a substantive idea analysis, of five confirmands’s faith stories, this essay aimes to try to show indications that the secularization, that Sweden is characterized by today, is not solely due to people having a reduced faith or an absent faith. I want to show that there is a natural development in the religious language. This was done by answering two questions and using the developed analysis questions on the faith stories. By analyzing each individual confirmand’s faith story based on the four analysis questions: How does the confirmand describe God? How does the confirmand describe faith? How does the story relate to Sallie McFague? as well as How does the story relate to Janet Soskice? The analysis led to a number of conclusions. These cleary show that faith and what or who God is, is highly personal and an inner process. People today need new metaphors relevant to the their present, to describe the elusive and abstract. Since metaphors have a central function in the design of the religious language, it means that the religious language changes when the society changes. This indicates that secularizations in todays Sweden is not only about reduced faith or an absent faith.