Gate-Keeping in the Age of Information Society: Online GPA Data in Lower Secondary Schools

Despite ten years of direct regulation, our study of Danish lower secondary schools shows that they do not provide online access to the GPA for individual public schools (N=1,592). Using Lipsky’s gate-keeping theory, we investigate the lack of data provision as indicator not only of professionals’ being reluctant to accept imposed standards and control from central level (top-down) but also avoiding demands from parents (and children) on transparency and accountability (bottom-up). The lack of accessibility of grades on the web can thus be seen as a classical gate-keeping mechanism evolving in the age of information society where expectations of end-of-gatekeeping by providing accessibility and transparency using information systems has been outnumbered by classical forces of gate-keeping.