Xiaoping Hu, Yingxia Guo, Xintao Li
The “revitalization of county high schools” represents a crucial issue in the ongoing reform of basic education in China. The school-running standards, the quality of public education services, and the matter of educational equity in county high schools have garnered increasing attention and been assigned a strategic priority for development. This study, based on a sample of 2,809 county high school students in Province A of China, employed descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and multinomial logistic regression to investigate their educational choice willingness. The findings indicate that the influence of family capital on the educational choices of county high school students is “present yet limited”, primarily manifested in the choice of institution types. The educational choices of county high school students exhibit gender disparities, school-type differences, and grade-related variations. It is important not to overemphasize the explanatory power of family capital. Instead, it is necessary to move beyond the perspective of “capital determinism” and focus on educational choice as an expression of the subjectivity and development aspirations of county high school students.