Gatekeeping is the process of controlling the rate at which students progress to more advanced levels of study in the academic setting. The term can also be more widely applied to refer to the social structures which test individuals for a certain level of understanding before allowing them to perform certain social functions (e.g. medical education to become a medical doctor).
Issues
Often test scores are used as a metric by which to allow or disallow a student to progress. Research has been done investigating the influence of social class, family income level, race, or other potentially unjustified factors on the gatekeeping practice, especially in public schools in the United States. "Given the differences in score distributions, the chances are small for poor and minority students. This is especially true for African Americans." (Kornhaber, p. 8) The concern is that "If very high scores are needed to excel in a field, or if gatekeepers believe that this is so, the fact that whites are ten to twenty times more likely to have high scores makes it almost impossible for blacks to be well represented...." (Hedges & Nowell, 1998, p. 167).
External Links
Gatekeeping: A Model for Screening Baccalaureate Students for Field Education Cooking Up a Multi-Vocal Essay: Dinner Conversations about Teaching and Writing MVEs Gate Keeping - Allowing All Children Access to Advanced Courses
References
- Yancey, Kathleen Blake. "Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key." College Composition and Communication 56.2 (2004):297-328.
- Kornhaber, Mindy L. Reconfiguring Admissions to Serve the Mission of Selective Public Higher Education (January 14, 1999).
- National Commission on Testing and Public Policy (1990). From gatekeeper to gateway: Transforming testing in America. Chestnut Hill, MA: National Commission on Testing and Public Policy, Boston College.
- Hedges, L.V. & Nowell, A. (1998). Black-white test score convergence since 1965. In C. Jencks and M. Phillips (Eds.). The black-white test score gap. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.
