Educational Media Reviews Online

These 3 titles are part of a series of 16 programs on women in nontraditional careers. In each program, an upbeat soundtrack accompanies a 15 minute segment where women speak directly to the audience, in their own words, about the work they do and why they like it.

Shifting Gears Changing Careers is about women who went from traditional jobs for women to non-traditional careers. Nineteen women who went from being food service, clerical, and child care personnel to becoming engineers, electricians and entrepreneurs, express their personal and professional satisfaction with their new careers. All the women speak frankly about their former working lives, why they wanted a change, how they accomplished that change and what its benefits have been.

Women in Highway Construction features 21 women in the highway construction business in a wide variety of occupations such as pavement marker, civil engineer, concrete finisher, operating engineer, owner and laborer. Although many of the women featured admitted that they went into this field primarily for the money, they all added that after a while they realized that they really liked the work. The satisfaction of being part of a team and of starting and completing a tangible project that would last a long time became more important than an increase in wages. All the women enjoyed being able to work out of doors and having independence and variety of work in their chosen occupations.

Writing at Work interviews 19 women in a wide variety of non-traditional occupations who use writing extensively in their work. All the women interviewed stress how important it is to have the ability to communicate with people, not only verbally, but via the written word as well. The ability to write concise, factual reports as well as to speak to the general public is crucial in occupations which include detective, firefighter, policewoman, water resources supervisor, engineering specialist, electrical engineer and technical services manager.

A 113 page resource guide accompanies each DVD. The complete script is included in each guide as well as a profile for each woman featured. Discussion questions accompany each profile. There are also additional discussion questions, discussion-starters, a 4 page bibliography and overhead transparency masters for use by program presenters and classroom teachers. This set is an excellent resource for college and high school career counselors and is highly recommended for high school and college library career collections.

Awards

• Write Women Back into History Award (National Women’s History Project)
• Best Films and Videos for Young Adults (American Library Association)