在我国教育规模扩张的过程中，城乡初中后教育入学机会公平问题始终受到各界广泛关注。在探讨该问题的成因时，多数学者从家庭出身、学校质量、政策变迁等客观因素进行分析，较少关注到教育期望的影响。

本研究基于从CFPS五期追踪数据中筛选出的2526个初中生追踪样本和1607个高中生追踪样本，对我国城乡学生不同阶段客观教育背景、教育期望及初中后教育机会获得情况进行分析，并引入教育期望作为解释城乡背景对学生初中后教育机会获得影响的中间机制。研究发现：（1）从城乡背景与学生教育期望的关系来看，不论在初中阶段还是在高中阶段，城乡学生教育期望均存在显著差异；在仅控制客观教育背景的条件下，农村地区期望获得高等教育的学生比例显著低于城市地区。（2）从城乡背景与学生初中后教育机会获得的关系来看，在仅控制客观教育背景而不控制教育期望的条件下，农村学生较城市学生在高中教育、普通高中教育、高等教育机会获得方面均处于不利地位；在同时控制客观教育背景和教育期望的条件下，城乡背景对初中生普通高中教育机会获得的影响不再显著，对高中生高等教育机会获得的影响明显下降。（3）从教育期望与学生初中后教育机会获得的关系来看，在同时控制城乡和其他客观教育背景的条件下，相比于不期望获得高等教育的学生，期望获得高等教育的学生在高中教育、普通高中教育和高等教育机会获得方面均具有显著优势。因而，教育期望与初中后教育机会城乡分化的关系可以表述为：在青少年时期期望获得高等教育的学生，最终获得高中教育、普通高中和高等教育的机会明显增加；而个人高等教育期望的产生与其城乡背景密切相关，城市学生相对较高的教育期望最终会转化为其初中后教育机会获得的显著优势。

基于实证研究结果，为促进我国城乡初中后教育机会公平，建议政府、学校、家庭在学生受教育过程中，既要重视客观教育背景对城乡初中后教育机会分化的直接影响，也要重视客观教育背景通过教育期望对城乡初中后教育机会分化产生的间接影响。具体而言，政府应强化顶层设计，营造公平教育环境；学校应注重多措并举，提高教育教学质量；父母应加强自我学习，提升教育参与水平。

With the expansion of China's education scale, the equality of access to post-junior-secondary-school education between urban and rural has always been widely concerned by all walks of life. When discussing the causes of this problem, most scholars analyzed the influence of objective factors such as family background, school quality and educational policy while ignored the influence of educational expectation.

Based on the tracking samples of 2,526 junior secondary school students and 1,607 senior secondary school students selected from 5 waves (2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018) of CFPS, this study compares the objective educational background, educational expectations, and access to post-junior-secondary-school education of urban and rural students in China at different stages. And on this basis, educational expectations are introduced as an intermediate mechanism to explain the impact of urban and rural background on students' post-junior-secondary-school education. The results show that: (1) From the perspective of the relationship between urban and rural backgrounds and students' educational expectations, there are significant differences in the educational expectations of urban and rural students in both junior secondary school and senior secondary school. Under the condition of only controlling the objective educational background, the proportion of middle school students who expect to obtain higher education in rural areas is significantly lower than that in urban areas. (2) From the perspective of the relationship between urban and rural backgrounds and students' access to post-junior-secondary-school education, under the condition of controlling only the objective educational background and not the educational expectations, rural students are disadvantaged in terms of access to senior secondary schools，regular senior secondary schools and higher education than urban students. Under the condition of controlling both the objective educational background and educational expectation, the influence of urban and rural background on junior secondary school students' access to regular-senior- secondary-school education is no longer significant, and its influence on students' access to higher education is obviously decreased. (3) From the perspective of the relationship between education expectation and students' access to post-junior-secondary-school education, under the condition of controlling urban and rural areas and other objective educational backgrounds at the same time, compared with students who do not expect to obtain higher education, students who expect to obtain higher education have significant advantages in the access to senior secondary schools，regular senior secondary schools and higher education. Therefore, the relationship between education expectation and the urban-rural differentiation of post-junior-secondary-school education opportunities can be expressed as follows: Students who expect to go to college in their adolescence are more likely to have the access to senior secondary schools，regular senior secondary schools and higher education; the relatively high education expectation of urban students will eventually be transformed into significant advantages to obtain post-junior-secondary-school education since individuals' education expectations are closely related to their urban and rural backgrounds.

Based on the results of empirical research, in order to realize the equality of access to post-junior-secondary-school education between urban and rural areas, objective educational background and educational expectation should be paid attention to simultaneously. Specifically, the government should strengthen top-level design and create a fair educational environment. Schools should pay attention to multiple measures to improve the quality of education and teaching; Parents should strengthen their self-study and raise the level of educational participation.