Promoting Self‐Advocacy Among Minority Students in School Counseling

Abstract

This article presents self-advocacy competencies developed to promote the academic, career, and personal/social success of minority students. The authors discuss challenges faced by minority students in today's educational environment and review principles of self-advocacy. Competencies for developing self-advocacy awareness, knowledge, and skills are discussed along with school counseling strategies for promoting self-advocacy among minority students.

Advocating Student‐within‐Environment: A Humanistic Theory for School Counseling

“…Using ASE, the school counselor advocates for student wellness development via any appropriate counseling process that is designed to maximize the student's human agency within the context of a collective agency. This type of advocacy closely resembles the self-advocacy approach recommended by Astramovich and Harris (2007) for school counselors working especially with ethnic minority students. However, given that student agency is contained within a triadic causal configuration, including the agency of the school environment, student self-advocacy alone might lack the relevance and fortitude necessary to repel governors of learning and development.…”

Implementing Self-Advocacy Training Within a Brief Psychoeducational Group to Improve the Academic Motivation of Black Adolescents

“…However, selfadvocacy training is also essential for other underrepresented populations, such as minority students. Astramovich and Harris (2007) believe there is a need for self-advocacy training in education to help reduce issues of institutional racism among minority students. They view self-advocacy training as a critical training model for underrepresented=underserved populations (Astramovich & Harris).…”

“…Empowerment is defined as efforts to increase an individual or group's control over life decisions and awareness of the potentially damaging role of power structures in society (Astramovich & Harris, 2007). The perception of a lack of power and control over self and the environment has negatively affected the self-concept of some members of underrepresented populations.…”

A national study

“…The issue has echoed across several disciplines (e.g., communication sciences and disorders, educational testing, school psychology, school counseling, counselor education, teacher education, and special education) (Paredes, 2010 actively involved in supporting students from diverse backgrounds in order to succeed academically. Actively advocating for all students to succeed in their personal, educational, and career goals is congruent with recent developments in multicultural and social justice approaches to counseling (Astramovich & Harris, 2007).…”

“…Despite harmful results, oppression increases when society does not challenge the abovementioned routine practices and rules (Bell, 1997). Numerous educational policies and practices are structured for students to succeed; these may result in perpetuating stereotypes and oppression of students from diverse backgrounds (Astramovich & Harris, 2007).…”