Gatekeeping (education)
Encyclopedia
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
).
, 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 American
s." (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).
Medical education
Medical education is education related to the practice of being a medical practitioner, either the initial training to become a doctor or additional training thereafter ....
to become a medical doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
).
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 classSocial class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
, family income
Family income
Family income is generally considered a primary measure of a nation's financial prosperity.In the United States, political parties perennially disagree over which economic policies are more likely to increase family income. The party in power often takes the credit for any significant changes in...
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 American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s." (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).