Black Women and Barriers to Leadership in ABA
Track race-gender workforce data and assign mentors to Black women BCBAs to fix leadership gaps.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Cirincione-Ulezi (2020) wrote a position paper, not an experiment.
She listed the roadblocks that keep Black women from rising into ABA leadership.
The paper calls on every agency to track race-gender data and bake DEI steps into daily work.
What they found
No numbers were crunched.
Instead, the author maps the system: invisible labor, biased promotion paths, and lack of mentors.
The takeaway is a to-do list: collect workforce stats, run reflective DEI practices, and open doors for Black women leaders.
How this fits with other research
Rosales et al. (2023) extends this idea. Their small-company report shows exactly how to recruit and keep diverse staff.
Jones et al. (2020) audits a different gap: most JABA articles skip participant race and gender data. Both papers wave the same transparency flag.
Barton et al. (2019) and Straiton-Webster et al. (2025) seem to clash. E et al. found Black children start ABA later; Straiton-Webster found no racial dosage gap in Medicaid files. The difference is the yardstick—age of intake versus monthly hours—so both can be true.
Why it matters
If you supervise staff, track who gets promoted and who does not. Add race-gender fields to your HR forms today. Hand incoming Black BCBAs a mentor on day one. These small moves chip away at the barriers this paper names.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
In recent years, anecdotal data have suggested an increase in the number of Black women in the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA). However, there does not appear to be a significant increase in the number of Black women in leadership roles within the field (e.g., clinical directors, heads of university and college ABA programs). Since the diversity of providers and leadership in the field is an important factor in effectively meeting the diverse needs of ABA consumers, the lack of Black women leaders in the field can be described as problematic. Identification of the potential barriers some Black women face when pursuing and attaining positions of leadership in the field of ABA, such as a lack of diversity, stereotypes, and insufficient access to mentors and sponsors, may serve as an effective first step to ameliorating the problem. Recommendations to address identified barriers, including a conceptually systemic plan for data collection that includes racial and gender data, paired with the use of reflective practice by ABA practitioners, and additional diversity and inclusion research in the area of organizational behavior management. Recommendations are offered.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2020 · doi:10.1007/s40617-020-00444-9