Exploring the Historic Origin of Cultural Gatekeeping in Physics Education

Culture in departments is rooted in history; by analyzing the historical culture of physics departments, we may come to a new understanding of attitudes, unspoken assumptions, and ideas that permeate contemporary culture. Here, we examine the evolution of the idea that physics education should serve as a filter, a practice commonly called gatekeeping. Physics graduate education saw great reform throughout the early and mid-20^th century, with many calls to organize and standardize the disordered, haphazard system that was present. Concerns were voiced about the education process and the quality of the students who were granted degrees. These calls to reform resulted in a variety of changes that were designed around the needs of the student body at the time. In the present, our field is more diverse than ever before, and our current standards and expectations fail to support these learners. However, this failure is often seen as the student's failure rather than the system design's failure. This project analyzes gatekeeping through 20^th-century calls for reform, and, using social dominance theory and the concept of legitimizing myths, argues that modern policies that disadvantage minoritized students are kept around due to a perceived need to gatekeep the subject.