A Sociological Study of Religious Rites and Practices: The Empirical Case of High Scholl Students in Dezful

The purpose of this study is the explanation of sciological rituals and religious practices. Durkheim's theory constitutes the theoretical framework for this study. The dependent variables are religious rites and practices. The independent variables include religious socialization, social solidarity, social control, community revitalization, and gender. The research population is the population of high school students in Dezful in the 2011-2012 academic year from which a sample of 350 students has been drawn based on Cochran’s formula. Findings have been arrived at using the SPSS software package for data analysis. These findings show the existence of positive significant relationships between religious rites and practices on the one hand and other independent variables the study on the other hand including religious socialization, social control, social solidarity, and social revitalization operationalized based on Durkheim's theories. Multiple correlation coefficients point to the fact that social control has the strongest relationship followed by the variables of religious socialization, social solidarity, and social revitalization respectively. Results also showed higher female religiosity levels shown as compared with religious practices reported for boys.