Matrix Parent Network and the Marin Center for Independent Living funded and supported the production of this podcast.

Self-Advocacy is a phrase that is used often in special education, but often with little context as to what it means. What does it mean for a student to be an effective self-advocate and why it is so important?

In this episode of the Matrix Parents Practical Special Education Podcast for Parents, we look at what the term really means and why it is a critical skill to learn and practice, particularly in high school.

We'll look at racial and socio-economic factors that are largely responsible for low levels of the concept of "societal shorthand", that is, the understanding how institutions work and how to access the help they are designed to provide.

And we'll bring it back to the conclusion that learning the way our society works, and how to access it's benefits, is more important than wealth, education and even cognition in determining who wins and who loses out on a successful transition to adult life.

Here are citations and resources related to this episode:

1. My Life: Effects of a longitudinal, randomized study of self-determination enhancement on the transition outcomes of youth in foster care and special education https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0190740912002927

2. Self-Determination and the Education of Students with Disabilities Author: Michael Wehmeyer September 2002: https://transitionca.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/SD-Article-Wehmeyer.pdf

3. Vanderbilt University’s IRIS Center https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/tran-scp/cresource/q2/p03/#content

4. Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy (JLSP)https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1028&context=njlsp

5. E.D. Hirsch on ‘Cultural Literacy’https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-7/committed-knowledge-the-modern-past/e.d.-hirsch-on-cultural-literacy

Thanks to soundimage.org for the free access to the AI generated music used in this podcast (https://soundimage.org/)