Cultural Code‐Switching: Straddling the Achievement Gap

WHEN Barack Obama became the first African-American president of the United States he bolstered America’s claim to be a nation of equal opportunity. Obama exemplifies an archetype of upwardly mobility for minorities, bridging the socio-economic achievement gap while remaining engaged with his African-American community; he appears as comfortable among his mostly white and affluent colleagues as among the mostly black and socio-economically diverse members of the congregation he attended. Obama’s success appeared to be partially dependent on his ability to engage in cultural code-switching. Code-switching could be characterized as the ability to adapt one’s behavior as a response to a change in social context much like bilingual speakers switch languages in response to a change in linguistic context. However, this statement of the ability is too general—every agent has to adapt her behavior in response to the different norms governing the various dimensions of her work, home, and social life. The case of upwardly mobile minorities is interesting because they exhibit an ability to switch between comprehensive and potentially conflicting value systems. Code-switchers appear able to navigate two (or more) distinct communities and reap the benefits of belonging to both. Consequently, this kind of code-switching has become a topic of interest to scholars examining the achievement gap because it appears to be a way for low-income minorities to remain authentically engaged with the values of their communities, while taking advantage of opportunities for further education and higher incomes available to those that participate in the middle-class.