Abstract:

Analyzing the school choice logic of students whose scores in the senior high school entrance examination are at the watershed between regular high schools and vocational high schools will help us to dismantle the educational development dilemma of vocational education and general education, which is called classification but is actually stratified. Students identify the educational function and selective function of general and vocational schools through the signals of classified education and merit-based selection, so as to form a school selection decision that ensures education equity as much as possible. A series of structural and agentive factors affect the identification process. In the future, we should improve career orientation services in primary and secondary schools, promote the consistent development of vocational education concepts, teaching content, pedagogies, and teaching technologies, and create a growth path for students that is different from theoretical teaching and learning in the general schools, so as to provide process equity as the support for achieving equitable education opportunities and outcomes.

Key words: vocational education, school choice, education equity