Psychological aspects in religious residential schools in Israel

A brief survey is presented of social-psychological topics in residential schools in Israel, contrasting religious residential schools (not ultra-orthodox) with secular (regular) residential schools. Current literature shows there is no methodological research on the psychological aspects and their effect on students in religious residential schools and no attempt to compare secular and religious students regarding psychologically influenced topics. This article attempts to fill this lacuna by examining studies dealing with psychological topics, some incidentally relating to religious, without systematic comparison to secular schools, and reporting the author's personal experience. The findings exhibit various distinctions between the two types of schools and subjects, i.e., boy-girl relations, family communications, separation, which should be methodologically researched especially in religious schools.