A large body of empirical studies shows that religion often serves as a factor promoting positive, healthy outcomes in the lives of American adolescents. Yet existing theoretical explanations for these religious effects remain largely disjointed and fragmented. This article attempts to formulate a more systematic, integrated, and coherent account of religion's constructive influence in the lives of American youth, suggesting nine key factors (moral directives, spiritual experiences, role models, community and leadership skills, coping skills, cultural capital, social capital, network closure, and extra-community links) that cluster around three key dimensions of influence (moral order, learned competencies, and social and organizational ties).Several decades of social scientific studies have shown that religion is often a factor in the lives of American adolescents, influencing their attitudes and behaviors in ways that are commonly viewed as positive and constructive. Across a number of areas of concern, various measures of religiosity are typically associated with a variety of healthy, desirable outcomes. This article is an attempt to theorize systematically why religion might have such an influence in the lives of American adolescents. Within the relevant bodies of literature, individual publications normally suggest causal mechanisms explaining their particular findings. Altogether, these many studies are very helpful, but as a whole they present the contemporary researcher with a disjointed and fragmented account for religious influences in the lives of American teenagers. In the following pages, I attempt to synthesize some of what we know from these and other informative studies into a more coherent, systematic account of how and why religion exerts significant positive effects on American youth. RELIGIOUS EFFECTSA systematic review of the literature on religion and youth reveals notable patterns of religious influences among American adolescents. Although the present article is not intended as a literature review (see Regnerus, Smith, and Fritsch forthcoming), some of these effects are worth mentioning as background to the theoretical discussion below.A large majority of studies, for example, that have included religion measures (especially church attendance and importance of religious faith) have found them to be inversely related to juvenile drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, and to delinquency (for example, Wallace and Williams 1997;Evans et al. 1995;Pawlak and Defronzo 1993;Cochran 1993;Cochran and Akers 1989;NCASA 2001). Multiple studies also confirm that religiosity is inversely related to thoughts of suicide, attempted suicide, and actual suicide among American teenagers (for instance, Donahue 1995). Religiosity also appears to act as a protective influence against suicide among youth most at risk for it. Furthermore, religion is associated with lower levels of depression and hopelessness, which suggests it has an additional indirect effect on risk of suicide (Wright, Frost, and Wisecarver 1993).St...

Since the rise of the religious right, scholars have become increasingly interested in studying conservative Protestantism. Not only do conservative Protestants (CPs) make up at least a quarter of the US population; they differ from many Americans in gender-role attitudes, childrearing styles, political orientation, and other ways as well. In fact, religious factors often predict people's political views better than do either class or gender, even though the latter two have received far more attention in the scholarly literature ( Manza & Brooks 1997 , Kellstedt et al 1996b ). Unfortunately research in this area has been hampered by imprecise measurement and poor understanding of the various movements grouped together as CPs. This has muddied statistical results, stifled theoretical development, and blinded researchers to promising areas of analysis. Thus, in this chapter we first discuss the history and distinctive qualities of the various CP movements, then we use these insights to propose better survey measures, and finally we apply this knowledge to several substantive areas (i.e., gender-role attitudes, childrearing styles, tolerance, the “culture wars,” the religious right, and the reasons for the religious vitality of CP groups).

Research on volunteering behavior has consistently found a positive relationship between religion and volunteering. Using a sample of churchgoing Protestants (N=1,738) from the Religious Identity and Influence Survey we examine the specific influences of religiosity, religious identity, religious socialization, and religious social networks on local volunteer activity in church programs and non-church organizations, as well as general volunteering tendencies. These influences are presented within the theoretical framework of religious capital. Logistic regression techniques were applied to determine the strength of the contribution of these influences while accounting for basic background factors. Findings suggest that churchgoing Protestants are influenced by all measures to some degree, but religiosity (specifically participation in church activities) remains the strongest influence. Significant religious influences overall are most pronounced within the context of church-related volunteering which suggests that churchgoing Protestants exhibit a strong sense of community identity through their local churches. A discussion of these results and their implications for volunteering follows.

CHRISTIAN SMITH MELINDA LUNDQUIST DENTON ROBERT FARIS MARK REGNERUSSociologists know surprisingly little about the religious lives of adolescents in the United States. This article begins to redress that unfortunate lack of knowledge by examining descriptive findings on adolescent religious participation from three recent, reputable national surveys of American youth. We present descriptive statistics on three fundamental aspects of youth religious participation: religious affiliation, religious service attendance, and involvement in church youth groups. We also examine the influences of gender, race, age, and region on these religious outcomes. This descriptive inquiry should help to heighten broader understanding of and to lay down a baseline of essential information about American adolescent religious participation. Further research is needed to investigate the social influence of different kinds of religiosity on various outcomes in the lives of American youth.We know relatively little about the religious lives of American adolescents. The vast majority of research in the sociology of religion in the United States focuses on American adults, ages 18 and older. And few scholars of American adolescents in other fields pay close attention to youth's religious lives. As a result, our social scientific knowledge of the religious affiliations, practices, beliefs, experiences, and attitudes of American youth is impoverished. 1 This is a problem for many reasons. American adolescents between the ages of 10-19 represent about 14 percent of all Americans (adolescents ages 10-24 represent 21 percent), an ageminority population deserving scholarly attention as much as any other group. Indeed, American adolescents may deserve extra scholarly attention by sociologists of religion. Adolescence represents a crucial developmental transition from childhood to adulthood and so can disclose a tremendous amount of knowledge about religious socialization and change in the life course. Adolescents are a population that many religious organizations, both congregations and parachurch ministries, particularly target in order to exert influence in their lives. Adolescence and young adulthood is also the life stage when religious conversion is most likely to take place. Adolescence furthermore provides a unique opportunity to study religious influences on family relationships and dynamics, peer interactions, risk behaviors, and many other outcome variables. Finally, adolescence provides an ideal baseline stage for longitudinal research on religious influences in people's lives.

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