Culture, bias, and fitting services to a family
An ongoing habit, not a course you finish
- RBT
- BCaBA
- BCBA
What the obligation is
Two connected obligations. Cultural humility is the stance: keep examining your own assumptions, notice where your background differs from the family's, and learn about their values from them rather than from a summary about a group. Cultural responsiveness is what follows from it: adapting goals, procedures, materials and language so services fit this family's actual life. The technician outline asks for both — ongoing humility and responsiveness including identifying personal biases — in service delivery and in professional relationships. The analyst code extends it to supervision, where identity and power shape who gets coached and who gets overlooked.
In plain language
Notice your own assumptions. Ask each family what matters to them. Then change how you work so it fits their life, their language and their routines.
What this looks like
- Asking a family how mealtimes, greetings or bedtime actually work in their home before setting goals.
- Choosing reinforcers from what the family eats and plays with.
- Noticing that you coach one supervisee more than another and asking yourself why.
- Materials and instructions available in the language spoken at home.
Where people get caught
- Reading about a culture and applying it as a template to every family from it.
- Treating "the same for everyone" as fairness when it ignores real differences.
- Setting goals that serve the setting's convenience rather than the family's values.
- Avoiding the subject entirely so as not to say the wrong thing, which leaves assumptions unexamined.
If you are not sure
Ask the family directly and treat their answer as the authority on their own life. Where a goal seems to conflict with family values, raise it with your supervisor rather than quietly deciding either way.
In the codes
- RBT Ethics Code (2.0) Section 1 — How you conduct yourself
- 1.07 Work on being culturally responsive, with your supervisor
- 1.08 Do not harass or discriminate
- 1.09 Notice when your own situation is affecting your work
- Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts Section 1 — Your conduct as a professional
- 1.07 Build cultural responsiveness, in yourself and in the people you supervise
- 1.08 Do not discriminate
- 1.10 Stay aware of your own biases and difficulties
- Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts Section 4 — What you owe supervisees and trainees
- 4.07 Make diversity part of supervision, not an add-on
On the exam
Terms used here
Situations where this comes up
Related topics
Written from
- bacb-ethics-code-2022 — Cultural responsiveness standards
- bacb-rbt-tco-3 — Task F.10
Written from the analyst code's cultural-responsiveness standards and the RBT outline's ethics task, in our own words.
This entry has not yet been through independent review. Treat it as a draft, and read the official code for anything that matters.