Previous research demonstrates two aspects of religion that affect civic activity-church participation and religious conservatism. Conservative religious beliefs and membership in conservative denominations are often associated with low levels of civic activity while church participation is said to increase civic activity. This article advances the discussion of the relationship between religion and civic participation by introducing the congregational context. Data from the 1987 Church and Community Planning Inventory show that congregations vary in their members' civic activity-congregational factors associated with conservative Christianity (high levels of biblical literalism and within-church friendships) are strongly and negatively associated with church members' activity in nonchurch organizations. At the individual level, the data show that education and participation in church activities other than religious services have particularly strong, positive effects on church members' activity in nonchurch organizations. The findings demonstrate that a conservative congregational context limits church members' activity in nonchurch organizations, potentially limiting their opportunities to build heterogeneous social networks and social capital that bridges church members to other people in their communities. Philip Schwadel is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at

Longitudinal social network data on adolescents in seven schools are analyzed to reach a new understanding about how the personal and interpersonal social dimensions of adolescent religion intertwine together in small school settings. We primarily address two issues relevant to the sociology of religion and sociology in general: (1) social selection as a source of religious homophily and (2) friend socialization of religion. Analysis results are consistent with Collins’ interaction ritual chain theory, which stresses the social dimensions of religion, since network-religion autocorrelations are relatively substantial in magnitude and both selection and socialization mechanisms play key roles in generating them. Results suggest that socialization plays a stronger role than social selection in four of six religious outcomes, and that more religious youth are more cliquish. Implications for our understanding of the social context of religion, religious homophily, and the ways we model religious influence, as well as limitations and considerations for future research, are discussed.

I challenge the scholarly contention that increases in education uniformly lead to declines in religious participation, belief, and affiliation. I argue that education influences strategies of action, and these strategies of action are relevant to some religious beliefs and activities but not others. Analysis of survey data shows that (1) education negatively affects exclusivist religious viewpoints and biblical literalism but not belief in God or the afterlife; (2) education positively affects religious participation, devotional activities, and emphasizing the importance of religion in daily life; (3) education positively affects switching religious affiliations, particularly to a mainline Protestant denomination, but not disaffiliation; (4) education is positively associated with questioning the role of religion in secular society but not with support for curbing the public opinions of religious leaders; and (5) the effects of education on religious beliefs and participation vary across religious traditions. Education does influence Americans' religious beliefs and activities, but the effects of education on religion are complex.

Despite the theoretical emphasis on religious decline in modern societies, sociologists remain divided over trends in religious activity and belief that support or refute claims of religious decline. Much of this disagreement stems from the inability to distinguish between period and cohort effects when analyzing repeated cross-sectional survey data. I use the intrinsic estimator, a recently developed method of simultaneously estimating age, period, and cohort effects, to examine changes in Americans' religious service attendance, prayer, belief in the afterlife, and biblical literalism. Results show that regular service attendance declines, predominantly across cohorts. There are also period-and cohort-based declines in biblical literalism and a cohort-based decline in prayer. Belief in the afterlife is relatively stable across periods and cohorts. These results provide mixed support for theories of religious decline, and they demonstrate the importance of differen tiating between period and cohort effects on social change.

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I use repeated, cross-sectional data from 1972 to 2006 to analyze age, period, and cohort effects on Americans' frequency of religious service attendance with cross-classified, random-effects models. The results show that the frequency of religious service attendance is relatively stable, with a modest period-based decline in the 1990s and little overall cohort effect. Although aggregate rates of attendance are stable, there are large changes across cohorts and periods in differences in attendance between men and women, southerners and non-southerners, and Catholics and mainline Protestants. These results serve as a reminder that aggregate trends can mask substantial changes among specific groups, and that factors that strongly influence religious participation at one period or among one birth cohort may not be the same factors that affect participation at another time or among another cohort.

We employ hierarchical age–period–cohort models and the 1974–2010 General Social Survey data to examine changes in the political tolerance of gays and lesbians, communists, racists, and anti‐religionists. Results show period‐based growth in political tolerance, cohort‐based growth in tolerance of anti‐religionists, baby boomers are particularly tolerant, and political tolerance is associated with changes in college education. The findings suggest that liberalizing trends in political tolerance are largely motivated by changes among Americans as a whole, not cohort replacement, that baby boomers are unique in their social and political perspectives, and that aggregate changes in higher education are correlated with changes in political tolerance.

Researchers hypothesize that social capital in the United States is not just declining, but that it is declining across generations or birth cohorts. Testing this proposition, we examine changes in social capital using age-periodcohort intrinsic estimator models. Results from analyses of 1972-2010 General Social Survey data show 1) that informal association with neighbors declined across periods while informal association with friends outside of the neighborhood increased across birth cohorts; 2) that formal association was comparatively stable with the exception of relatively high levels of formal association among the early 1920s and early 1930s birth cohorts; and 3) that trust declined considerably across both periods and cohorts, though the oldest cohorts are less trusting than those born in the 1920s through the 1940s. While the results suggest that changes in social capital are more complex than the simple decline depicted by many researchers, the aspects of social capital that have declined may be essential for promoting social and political participation.