Abstract:
This research aims to 1) study level of social support, self-esteem, and Self-Advocacy Behaviors among undergraduate students in higher education institutions, Chiang Mai province ; 2) study the factors influencing self-advocacy behaviors of children and youths in Muang District, Chiang Mai Province. The sample consisted of 442 children and youth, aged 13-18 years who were studying at secondary schools in Chiang Mai Province. They were randomly selected by multi-stage sampling. The research instrument was a questionnaire. The MIMIC model was utilized to analyse the data. The results showed that 1) Overall, the students highest level of Self-Advocacy Behaviors in the element Knowledge of Right and social support, high level of Self-Advocacy Behaviors in the element Knowledge of Self, Communication Skills, Leadership Skills and self-esteem ; 2) The developed model was consistent with the empirical data and all path coefficients were statistically significant at .05 levels. And this study also found that the causal factors ; social support and self-esteem could explain self-advocacy behaviors at a level of 47% predictability. Furthermore, the result showed that social support had the most effect on self-advocacy behaviors (total effect = .66), inferior to self-esteem (total effect = .10).