Culture Always Matters: Some Thoughts on Rosenberg and Schwartz
Treat culture as a mandatory part of ethical reasoning, not an optional extra.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Brodhead wrote a short think-piece. He asked: does the BACB Ethics Code ignore culture?
He used real cases where cultural values clashed with standard procedures. No new data were collected.
What they found
The Code was silent on language, religion, and family roles. This silence can hurt clients.
The author offered a simple fix: add a cultural lens to every ethical decision.
How this fits with other research
Uher et al. (2024) picked up the baton. They turned the 2019 idea into a checklist for Standard 1.07.
Sivaraman et al. (2020) showed the idea already works. Their review found tele-ABA teams in nine countries who translate goals and match trainers to families.
Graber et al. (2019) attacked the Code from a different angle. They warned that fee-for-service pay can force BCBAs to act against culture and ethics alike.
Why it matters
You now have permission to question the Code out loud. When a parent says eye contact is rude in their culture, pause the program and revise. Add a cultural line to your ethics worksheet today: "Whose values am I serving?" Five years of follow-up papers prove this small step is both ethical and doable.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Open your most recent BIP and flag one goal that may clash with the family’s cultural values, then revise it with the caregiver before the next session.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to and highlight some particularly enlightening arguments described by Rosenberg and Schwartz (2019). First, I emphasize the importance of the role of culture in ethical analysis and describe how the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts (2014; hereafter referred to as the BACB Code) unintentionally underplays the importance of culture. Second, I express support for the model of ethical analysis proposed by Rosenberg and Schwartz and explain how their model provides an excellent and much-needed framework for the observation (and subsequent study) of ethical decision-making in behavior-analytic practice. Finally, I go all in and join Rosenberg and Schwartz in their call for scholars to critically analyze and discuss the BACB Code and to challenge the status quo (or call into question those who do). Such a discussion is healthy for our science and understanding of ethics and behavior analysis.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2019 · doi:10.1007/s40617-019-00351-8