Western Society The New Expansion

There are two types of the research on socialization: one is the study on the problem of socialization, the other is the study on the theory of socialization. At the background of social constructivism and the explanation of the dilemma between agency and structure in the late western sociology, the research on socialization has reincarnated new trends. This paper focuses on three problems ,such as the problem of youth transition, the theory of habitus and life-course theory of socialization.The fist part give a brief introduction to the recent western research on socialization generally, and especially makes analysis on the contribution to the socialization study made in the sociology of education, and explore the study on language socialization carried out in American anthropology in 1980s and the interpretive approaches to socialization hi 1990s.The second part presents the study on youth transition in the sociology of education since 1970s. The research on youth transition goes throuth three stages which include research made in the early times, research in 1980s and research in 1990s.It is distinguished in the subjects and social circumstance at every stage, Youth transition firstly focused on schooling and youth peers, and then turned to the ecology of schooling . Youth transition was firstly regarded as a stable psychological transition , but in the 1990s, youth transition is considered as a extended stage ,and the outcome of the social construction, youth extended transition implies the contraction between agency and structure.So it also urge scholars to explain the phenomenon of youth extended transition through different approaches. Culture theory, structuralisim ,rational action theory always grab one direction, so youth extended transition still needs new explanation.The third part presents the theory of habitus which was put forward in 1970s.In spite of the early presentation , the researchers of socialization ignored it. This part attempts to analyse four problems,such as the development of the habitus cocepetion,how habitus is formed and how did the theory of habitus make methodological contribution to the study on socialization .The forth part mainly present life-course theory of socialization.this part sums up the key points of life-course theory cf socialization: socialization is a process go through a whole life ;the life-course theory of socialization especially emphasizes the influence of social regulations and social event on life-course;history and social structure interact each other,which leads to different life-course according to different family background;in the course of socialization, individual may construct his own life-course vigorously through his own intiative choose.In summary ,there are two features of recent western study of the socialization ,one is the studies become more and more complex;the other is the studies become more and more dialectical.This attributes two kinds of enlightments: firstly ,we ought to make a multi-subject study on socialization in our country; secondly,we need make up the opposition between the study on the problem of socialization and the study on the theory of socialization.