From Thought to Action: Developing a Social Justice Orientation

The transformative nature of self within Activism as a participant or observer is revealed ! A future generation of activists; now in middle school to college can benefit from their self discovery of SJO with the result of not only greater understanding but more peaceful and successful activism. Dr. Aldridge Sandford's book "removes the hate" while sparking critical reflection.

This book is a must read for any person, or educator, seeking to go from woke to action. The author weaves scholarship, narratives, and a guidebook into 10 easily digestible chapters. The way she conveys concepts and instructions makes the topics accessible. Moreover, this truly does not read like the textbook approach most other selections in this category employ. For anyone who needs a how-to guide for activism, this is your book.

This book gives a great overview of history and is very accessible to students. The author is honest about her own journey in social justice, and I think that is important for all of us to understand. I have the privilege of knowing the author personally, and this text is reflective of the work she does every day.

I like this book and I think a lot of people should read it, but I don't think it should be $40 for a book that's not even 200 pages.

As Education departments in American higher education feel the growing need for critical pedagogy, this book is a must have for their administrators, faculty and students to guide their frameworks for practice and policy. Social justice orientation and activism is a time-taking process and this book provides a good recipe for that. Individual, team, and organizational models can use this as per their populations and needs to customize critical consciousness for themselves.

I am one of the people who needed this book. I contacted the author for advice in situations. I agree with the necessity of the book. The book is easy to read and hard to put down. It gives step-by-step procedures to get started and how to overcome obstacles. I could see this being a book students would actually read in class. As a faculty member, sometimes I do not always know how to help students begin the next steps of their social justice steps. This book provides excellent details on how people feel during the process as well as actual steps to take to go through the process. The examples that were provided explained the history as well as current situations to help the reader have a better understanding of social justice.

I applaud Dr. Sanford’s goals for this book, and believe that such a book is long overdue. This book is written generally enough so that it will be a great fit for Dr. Sanford’s intended audience no matter what their discipline. I was especially impressed because it is clearly about social justice – unfettered by attachment to a particular discipline (sociology, labor rights, as examples) – but usable in a variety of academic disciplines and genres. Dr. Sanford’s book not only provides the necessary historic, cultural, and social contexts for this important work in social justice, but it serves as a step by step manual on how to get started in a social justice project. Activists and organizers will find this book a ‘must read.

Dr. Aldridge Sanford has put together a primer on social justice and activism that will stand the test of time. She has judiciously synthesized a complex assortment of historical, sociological, and political information in a way that is both accessible and useful for undergraduate students. This text will be of interest to any instructor or reader committed to learning more about the theory and practice of activism in various forms. Her insights are thought-provoking, attractive, and straightforward. It makes for enjoyable scholarly reading and reminds us that social activism, competently exercised, entails critical thought, personal reflection, and dialogical engagement with our shared realities.