The Impact of Religion on Girl's Tendency to Run Away from Home

Running away is a deviant behavior, displayed in children and adolescents. Most of the sociological researches on this subject were solely focused on family issues and failed to address the important role of religion and religious beliefs. The current study was an attempt to emphasize the impact of religion on one’s tendency to run away. The data was analyzed by means of Hirschi’s Theoretical Framework, which has four interrelated forms (religious attachment, religious commitment, religious involvement and religious belief). A survey has been carried out and the data was collected by self-assessment questionnaire. The population was all the high school students of Babol in 2011-2012 school year (1597 students in total). 370 students were selected based on stratified random sampling and data was analyzed with SPSS and Lisrel. The results showed that among four forms of Hirschi’s Framework, religious belief came in first and religious involvement came in second place. The other two forms (religious attachment and religious commitment) were insignificant. In conclusion, the study revealed that religion, as a protective factor, can decrease deviant behaviors of youngsters.