Field Imbalance and System Decoupling: A Field-System Coupling Analysis of the Predicament of County-level General High School Education

Abstract

Under the dual impact of educational urbanization and the hierarchical distribution of general high school resources, county-level general high schools (hereinafter referred to as “county high schools”), as the hubs connecting urban and rural education, compulsory education and higher education, are facing multiple predicaments in terms of student sources, teaching staff , quality and ecology, and have become the key bottlenecks restricting educational equity and rural revitalization. Based on Bourdiere’s field theory and Luhmann’s social system theory as the analytical framework, this article constructs a “field - system” coupling model to systematically analyze the realistic manifestations and causal mechanisms of the educational predicament in county middle schools. Based on the logic of field reset and system re-coupling, a three-level solution path of provincial coordination, county-level foundation building, and school-level capacity enhancement is proposed to reconstruct the relative autonomy of county-level educational fields and the differentiation and integration of system functions, with the aim of providing theoretical support and practical reference for the revitalization of county high schools during the “15th Five-Year Plan” period.