A Comparison of Coping Styles and Religious Practice among Students of Religious and Secular Non-Profit High Schools of Tehran

This study is designed to investigate the relationship between religious practice and coping styles in students of religious and secular high schools and discover the impact of approaches taken by schools to religious education on the students’ religiosity and application of religion in their lives. Therefore, two religious and two secular non-profit high schools were selected through accessible proportional stratified sampling, and the students completed questioners measuring religious practice (Golzari, 2000) and coping styles (Frydenberg & Lewis, 1994). The results showed that there was no significant difference between students of secular and religious high schools in coping styles, yet some significant differences were found in coping strategies between these students. There were also significant differences between the students of secular and religious high schools in religious practice, so the mean of students of religious high schools were higher than the students of secular high schools. These differences demonstrate that students of religious high schools are in better situation because of their high scores in religious practice and some coping strategies.