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One body of extant research has documented the social contours and positive effects of teen religiosity, while another has explored the religious sources of social congeniality ("niceness") among adult Americans. This study integrates these parallel bodies of scholarship by examining the religious bases of niceness among American teens. Using post-hoc interviewer ratings from wave 1 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we examine the degree to which religious teens are perceived more positively than their nonreligious peers. Associations linked to six dimensions of teen religiosity are considered. Select facets of teen religiosity are associated with more positive interviewer ratings, particularly for interpersonal warmth, thereby providing modest support for hypothesized patterns. Findings are interpreted in light of current theories of religious involvement, interpersonal dispositions, and social competencies.Religions 2018, 9, 328 2 of 15 and (3) patience and attentiveness. Our investigation ends with a discussion of the findings of this study and an identification of several directions for future research.

Experiential and active learning exercises can benefit students in sociology courses, particularly, courses in which issues of inequality are central. In this paper, we describe using hunger banquets—an active learning exercise where participants are randomly stratified into three global classes and receive food based upon their class position—to enhance students’ knowledge of global hunger and inequality. The nonprofit Oxfam America has made hunger banquets popular, but they are usually large public events. We provide ways of simplifying these exercises so that they can be conducted in sociology classrooms and incorporate sociological concepts. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of students’ learning and engagement in three hunger banquets found that students had increases in perceived knowledge of the amount, severity, and causes of global hunger.

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