Lessons Never Taught: Self-Advocacy as Resistance

This paper explores how students from minority groups, especially those with neurodiverse identities, can utilize self-advocacy as a powerful tool to stand up for themselves in school settings. It explains how understanding your identity and experiences, known as positionality, can help you challenge unfair narratives others might write for you.

The paper shares personal stories and academic ideas to show how speaking up for yourself is not just about getting what you need—it’s also a pathway to fight back against a system that might not see or value you for who you are.

One of the goals of this paper is to argue that students should feel confident in their identities and supported to ask for what they need, creating a more fair and inclusive environment for everyone.

with love,

caroline

This image features a powerful and striking figure, a person dressed in a bold, geometric-patterned outfit, standing confidently with the text "WORDS Matter" prominently displayed. Surrounding the figure are various small cut-out images, including an arm holding a light bulb and a figure in a dynamic pose, adding to the theme of ideas and action. At the bottom of the image, there is a block of text that reads: "Histories should not rest in peace—and neither should language. If we're engaging with history, if we're engaging with one another, then our understandings of the past and of one another are not static. The stories we tell ourselves about who we are and the words we use to tell them need to be revised, to be interrogated and called into question, because otherwise they become worn out and there is a kind of ignorance in continuing to tell and use them."