Школьная молитва: правовые и культурные аспекты в разных странах.

State sponsored or mandatory prayer by public school studentsSchool prayer, in the context of religious liberty, is state sanctioned or mandatory prayer by students in public schools. Depending on the country and the type of school, state sponsored prayer may be required, permitted, or prohibited. The United Kingdom requires daily worship by law, but does not enforce it. Countries which prohibit or limit school prayer often differ in their reasons for doing so. In the United States, school prayer cannot be required of students in accordance with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. This is generally rigorously applied in public schools; the Establishment Clause does not prevent prayer in private schools that have no public funding. In Canada, school sponsored prayer is disallowed under the concept of freedom of conscience as outlined in the Canadian Charter on Rights & Fundamental Freedoms. School sponsored prayer is disallowed in France as a byproduct of its status as a secular nation.

School prayers are a longstanding tradition in Indonesian schools. There is no specific law mandating school prayers in Indonesia. Before a religious education lesson, students pray according to their respective religions. On 10 December 2014, Minister of Education and Culture Anies Baswedan proposed to regulate the contents of school prayers before and after school. He denied rumours that he wanted to ban school prayers.

In England and Wales, the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 states that all pupils in state schools must take part in a daily act of collective worship, unless their parents request that they be excused from attending. A religion required is not, anymore, stated with in the legislative document provided by His Majesty's Government and drafted by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, the document furthermore declares that if a parent of a child within the school decides not to receive further religious education, they will be exempt from it hencewith. Despite this statutory requirement for schools to hold a daily act of collective worship, most do not. Ofsted's 2002 03 annual report, for example, stated that 80% of secondary schools were not providing daily worship for all pupils.

The challenges to Christian opening and closing exercises occurred mainly in Ontario with the crucial case being fought in The Ontario Court of Appeal in 1988. Zylberberg v. Sudbury Board of Education (Director) The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the use of the Lord’s Prayer in opening exercises in public schools offended the Charter s. 2(a). 1988. (1988), 65 O. R. (2d) 641, 29 O. A. C. 23 (C. A.). Education regulations did not require the use of the Lord's Prayer and there was an exemption provision. The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the regulation infringed religious freedom because schools could use only the Lord's Prayer rather than a more inclusive approach. It was argued that the exemption provision effectively stigmatized children and coerced them into a religious observance which was offensive to them. The Ontario Court of Appeal was persuaded by the argument that the need to seek exemption from Christian exercises is itself a form of religious discrimination. The judges described as insensitive the position of the respondents that it was beneficial for the minority children to confront the fact of their difference from the majority.

As a secular state (laïcité), France has no school prayers in secular state run institutions. Instead, public servants are advised to keep their religious faith private, and may be censured if they display it too openly. The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools goes beyond restricting prayer in schools and bans the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols by pupils in public primary and secondary schools. However, teachers in private religious schools have been paid by the government.

Being a secular state, religious instructions are prohibited by Article 26 of the Indian Constitution in schools administered by the state and hence school sponsored prayers are not allowed. However, Indian law also allows Islamic and other minority religious private schools to receive partial financial support from the states' and the central government of India to offer religious indoctrination if the school agrees that the student has an option to opt out from religious indoctrination if he or she so asks, and that the school will not discriminate any student based on religion, race, or other protected status grounds.

The issue of school prayer remains contentious even where courts as diverse as those in Canada, the United States, Russia, and Poland attempt to strike a balance between religious and secular activity in state sponsored arenas. Some arguments have held that religion in schools is both an effective sociomoral tool as well as a valuable means to psychological stability. On the opposing side, others have argued that prayer has no place in a classroom where impressionable students are continually subject to influence by the majority.