Jason Del Gandio - Educating for Action: Strategies to Ignite Social Justice

Praise For Educating For Action

For those of us who have been kind of making it up as we go along, this book is a real resource for change-making!

Bill McKibben, author, founder, 350.org

Here we have a book that seeks to teach people (particularly those in ostensibly democratic societies) how to disturb the peace. Increasingly, Ill stake my life on the idea that this is something peace education and other forms of critical pedagogy need to dedicate themselves to like never before if we are to avoid the worst of the catastrophic effects that now manifest as social and ecological crises across the face of the planet.

Richard Kahn, Core Faculty in Education, Antioch University Los Angeles

Educating for Action is a book whose time has returned. Del Gandio and Nocella take us forward from the days of Saul Alinsky, and do so with a fresh outlook and a recipe that is rich and promising for a more durable positive outcome than methods used by many earlier activists. The focus on transformative justice reminds the reader that peace can only be attained through truly peaceful means.

John C. Alessio, PhD, author, Social Problems and Inequality: Social Responsibility through Progressive Sociology

Educating for Action is a much-needed guide for activist communities that provides practical strategies for both seasoned and new activists. With a variety of perspectives and authors, this text should be on every radicals (and soon-to-be radicals) bookshelf.

Kim Socha, author, Women, Destruction, and the Avant-Garde: A Paradigm for Animal Liberation

In the community development and social change community, the question of good reading materials continually ariseswhere to find them and how to access them? Educating for Action answers that question. With chapters from Communication and Rhetoric to The Politics of Planning, Del Gandio and Nocella deliver a sound and contextual book that provides social change workers with a dense and excellent set of resources. This is the book for community development.

Daniel White Hodge, author, The Soul Of Hip Hop: Rims, Timbs and a Cultural Theology

The rhythm of activism is the beat of engaged citizenship and the pulse of a moral life: we open our eyes and pay attention to the world as it is; we allow ourselves to be astonished at the dazzling beauty as well as the unnecessary suffering all around us; we notice that next to the world as such is a world that could be or should bea possible world. We join hands and act, we reflect and rethink, and we repeat for a lifetime. Jason Del Gandio and Anthony J. Nocella II have assembled an essential companion for both seasoned and aspiring activists. Educating for Action can lend a hand as activists nourish their social imaginations and build up their courage and commitment, cultivate creativity and inventiveness, grow both their patience and their audacity, find ways to be thoughtful and passionate in the same gesture, and expand their sense of genuine solidarity. Educating for Action is a text to cram into your backpack alongside your water bottle and your vitamin Epart of the tool kit for those of us working to create a world of joy and justice, a planet at peace and in balance, a future powered by love and fit for all children.

Bill Ayers, PhD, author, Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist

Educating for Action is an impressive compendium that offers great insight from a stellar group of scholar-activists. The text is a rare combination of how-to guide grounded in theoretical context. Although aimed at youth activists, this is an excellent guide for any community organization or group searching for ways to improve its effectiveness. I can also imagine it serving as an invaluable resource for my undergraduate course in public policy and community action. This is exactly the right book, at the right time.

Sandy Grande, PhD, author, Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political Thought

Copyright 2014 by Jason Del Gandio and Anthony J. Nocella II.

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh.

All images iStock (Matches: mariosFM77, Protest: BenThomasPhoto)

New Society Publishers acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities.

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Educating for Action should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.

To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America) 1-800-567-6772, or order online at www.newsociety.com

Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:

New Society Publishers

P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada

(250) 247-9737

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Educating for action : strategies to ignite social justice / Jason del Gandio, Anthony J. Nocella II.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-0-86571-776-3 (pbk.).ISBN 978-1-55092-570-8 (ebook)

1. Social actionUnited States. 2. Social justiceUnited States.

3. Social movementsUnited States. 4. Social changeUnited States.

5. Peace. I. Nocella, Anthony J., editor II. Del Gandio, Jason, editor

New Society Publishers mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision. We are committed to doing this not just through education, but through action. The interior pages of our bound books are printed on Forest Stewardship Council-registered acid-free paper that is 100% post-consumer recycled (100% old growth forest-free), processed chlorine-free, and printed with vegetable-based, low-VOC inks, with covers produced using FSC-registered stock. New Society also works to reduce its carbon footprint, and purchases carbon offsets based on an annual audit to ensure a carbon neutral footprint. For further information, or to browse our full list of books and purchase securely, visit our website at: www.newsociety.com

This book is dedicated to all the peoplepast, present, and futurewho put their bodies on the line in the service of peace and justice. It is these people we most admire, and it is these people who make this world a better place.

Contents

JASON AND ANTHONY WOULD LIKE TO THANK THEIR FAMILIES and friends for their lifetime of support, guidance, and encouragement. They may not always agree with us, but that is the beauty of discussion and debateexpressing differences in the service of deeper understanding and mutual transformation. It is such a value that has laid the groundwork for our own sense of justice and rebellioncutting against the grain, standing up for our beliefs, and fighting for what we believe to be righteous and just. Jason and Anthony would like to also thank all the contributors to this volume; without them this would not have been possible: Anniessa Antar, Larry Albert Butz, Melissa Chiprin, James Generic, Jenny Grubbs, Joshua Ryan Holst, Joy James, Michael Loadenthal, Dara Lovitz, Peter McLaren, Alisha Page, Jeanette Russell, Kim Socha, Rita Verma, Drew Robert Winter, and Aaron Zellhoefer. And lastly, Jason and Anthony would like to thank everyone at New Society Publishers.