女性友谊既备受关注，又饱受争议。女性友谊通常被认为具有情感亲密、联结紧密、相互支持的特征，她们愿意进行深入对话与自我表露，并能给予彼此情感支持。然而，当前社会中仍普遍存在对女性友谊的污名与刻板印象，认为其复杂、戏剧、充满冲突与排斥，甚至在很长一段时间里，女性之间不被认为存在真正的友谊。作为与女性成长紧密相关的议题，既往研究多从心理学、文学视角出发，鲜少关注到成长过程中的女性友谊经验。因此，本研究从教育社会学视角出发，运用质性研究方法，旨在探究女性友谊与个人成长之间的联系。具体包括三个子问题：（1）从青少年时期到成年初显期，女性之间的友谊是怎样的？她们如何建构女性友谊？女性友谊的存在在当时扮演了什么样的角色？（2）在建构女性友谊的过程中，她们如何形成关于自我的身份认同？（3）回溯既有经验，从青少年时期到成年初显期，女性友谊在个体成长过程中扮演了怎样的角色？女性如何重构了对自我、对友谊的理解？
本研究借助吉登斯关于现代性与自我身份认同的理论，以“生活政治”、“信任”、“解放的政治”三大核心概念搭建理论框架，并结合女性主义视角，从微观层面的个体、中观层面的人际交往、宏观层面的社会环境三个维度探索女性友谊经验。运用叙事研究方法，本研究选取了14位受过良好高等教育的成年初显期女性，通过半结构式访谈收集到约41万字的访谈资料。
研究发现，处于成年初显期的女性友谊经验可以分为记忆中的友谊与重构的友谊。“记忆中的友谊”指的是女孩们对自身友谊经历的叙事。她们的友谊中既有温暖的一面，通过日常的分享与互动在成长中陪伴彼此；又有充满“解放的政治”之色彩的一面，她们彼此信任、相互支持，共同反抗性别暴力、解构传统身体叙事、改变既定权力关系；还有隐秘角落的存在，尤其是在青少年时期，友谊中常出现竞争与比较、复杂与拉扯。“重构的友谊”是指女孩们用反身性的方式赋予友谊以新的理解。一方面，女孩们重新认识了友谊中的自我，学会欣赏自我并寻求自我实现；另一方面，女孩们重新认识了友谊本身，改变对女性友谊的刻板印象，建构了更为平等自主的友谊关系。
从青少年时期至成年初显期，女性友谊经历了成长与变化，女孩们以反身性的方式践行着友谊中的生活政治。在青少年时期，置身于强竞争的基础教育阶段与污名女性友谊的社会环境中，女孩们对自我充满怀疑且缺乏自信，在友谊互动中更多表现为竞争、比较、质疑友谊的真实性。到了成年初显期，她们进入到多元包容的高等教育阶段，对女性主义运动有了更多认识，对自我有着更多接纳与肯定，在友谊中愿意欣赏、珍惜与信任朋友。
本研究对教育实践具有一定启示意义。女性友谊在女孩们长大成人的过程中扮演了重要角色，影响着她们的自我认知与人际交往，同时，她们在建构女性友谊时也会遇到困难和矛盾，尤其是在青少年时期，竞争与比较普遍存在。因此，帮助处于青少年时期的女孩们认识友谊，引导她们建立信任、互惠、支持的友谊关系，对于她们的成长具有重要意义。

Female friendship is controversial and has attracted the increasing concern of the public. Compared to male friendship, women tend to be willing to engage in deep conversations, disclosure themselves, and give each other emotional support in their friendship relationship. Therefore, female friendship has generally been perceived as more emotionally intimate, connected, and supportive. In the meanwhile, the stigma and stereotypes of female friendship has been widespreading, assuming female friendship too complex and full of conflict, exclusion and drama, even doubting whether women can have true friendship with each other. As female friendship is believed closely related to female's growth, a great deal of existing research has looked at female friendship from the perspective of psychology and literature. Therefore, drawing upon the perspective of sociology of education, this study attempts to use a qualitative way to explore the subtle connection between female friendship and personal growth of the females. Specifically, there are three research questions: (1) What are the friendships within females? How do they build their friendships with each other? (2) In the process of constructing friendships, how do they construct their own identities? (3) Looking back on the experience of friendship, what roles do female friendship play in one’s personal growth? Has their understanding of the self and friendship with each other changed? If so, how do they reconstruct them?
Inspired by Giddens's theory of modernity and self-identity, this study builds a theoretical framework based on the three core concepts of "life politics", "trust", and "emancipatory politics", and combines feminist perspectives to explore female friendship experience from three dimensions: individual at the micro level, interpersonal relationship at the meso level, and social context at the macro level. Employing narrative research paradigm, this study interviewed 14 well-educated females who were emerging adults and finally collected about 410,000 words of interview data through semi-structured interviews. 
The study found that the friendship experience of the females in the early stage of adulthood can be divided into “friendship in memory” and “friendship reconstructed”. “Friendship in memory” refers to the narratives of the females’ friendship experiences. There is a warm side in their friendship in which they accompany each other in their growth through daily sharing and loving interaction. There is also a side full of "emancipatory politics". They trust and support each other, and fight together to resist gender-based violence, deconstruct traditional body narratives, and change unequal power relations. There are also hidden corners, especially in the teenage years, when there is often competition and comparison, complexity and pulling. “Friendship reconstructed” refers to the reflexive way in which the females construct new understanding about themselves. On the one hand, they learn to appreciate themselves and seek self-realization. On the other hand, they re-understand the meaning of friendship, change the stereotypical image of female friendship, and construct more equal and autonomous friendship relationships. 
From adolescence to emerging adulthood, female friendship has grown and changed, and females have practiced the politics of friendship in a reflexive way. In the adolescent years, under the social environment with strong competition in the basic education stage and the stigmatization of female friendship, our participants are full of self-doubt and lack of self-confidence, and are more likely to compete, compare, and question the authenticity of their friendship with each other. In thieir emerging adulthood, when they enter universities with a much more diverse and inclusive contextual environment, they start to be influenced by feminist movements and develop understandings of feminist perspectives, which facilitates their acceptance and affirmation of themselves, as well as their willingness to appreciate, trust and cherish female friendship.
This study has certain implications for educational practice. Female friendship plays an important role in the process of females’ adulthood, affecting their self-perception and interpersonal relationships. When constructing friendship, they will also encounter difficulties and contradictions with more competition and comparison, especially in the adolescent years. Therefore, it is of great significance for educators to help adolescent girls understand friendship, and thus facilitate them to establish friendships of trust, reciprocity and support.