Purpose/Aims: To explore the relationship between perceived risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes and the health-world view of Samoans with two or more components of metabolic syndrome.1. Describe participant's perceptions of risk for CVD and diabetes.2. Compare participants' actual risk of CVD and diabetes based on presence of components of metabolic syndrome to their perceived risk of CVD and diabetes.3. Describe the relationships among participants' health-world views and perceived risk for CVD and diabetes.Rationale/Background: Diabetes and CVD are leading causes of health disparities in the United States, particularly among Pacific Islanders, whose rates for CVD and diabetes are among the highest in the Nation. Metabolic syndrome significantly increases risks for CVD and diabetes and can be prevented using behavioral approaches. An important concept in behavioral models, perceived risk is influenced by both sociocultural and health-world views; yet is understudied in Pacific Islanders with regard to CVD and diabetes.Methods and Sample: Questionnaires and focus groups were used in this mixed methods study involving 43 adult Samoans at moderately high risk of CVD or diabetes. Culture brokers were used to access potential participants using a non-probabilistic sampling scheme. Qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and content analysis respectively, and points of convergence, complementarity, and/or divergence were identified.Results/Significance: Over 80% of participants perceived themselves as high risk for CVD and diabetes. Converging and complementary data revealed predominately accurate perceptions of risk for CVD and diabetes. Underestimations of risk were influenced by current behavior. Overestimations of risk were influenced by behavior, physical health, and family and personal history. Nine codes supported the category health-world view. Five ways of knowing: personal, aesthetic, sociopolitical, empiric, and unknowing, and several values and beliefs i.e. respect, family, religion, harmony/balance, and personal responsibility, together with two cultural codes influenced perceived risk for CVD and diabetes. These important influences on perceived risk for CVD and diabetes in Samoan participants can be used to develop interventions targeting CVD and diabetes, thereby meeting Healthy People 2010, the National Institute of Nursing Research (2006) guidelines, and the National Patient Safety goals (2008) goals.

Background: The Samoan population is a growing population and one with an estimated high incidence of aphasia. Language assessment with bilingual individuals is said to be a challenging area of Speech-Language Therapy practice. Language assessment of bilingual Samoan-English speakers with aphasia is a field with limited research, and the specific experience of the individuals involved is an important factor to consider in improving SLT practice with this population. Aims: The current thesis aimed to explore the experience of language assessment of bilingual Samoan-English speakers with aphasia as perceived by those involved in the assessment process. Method: Two qualitative studies were utilised to address the aims, the first was a single case study observing the process of language assessment of a bilingual Samoan-English speaker with aphasia and follow-up interviews with other participants involved. The second study was a focus group with Speech-Language Therapists who had experience with language assessment of bilingual Samoan-English speakers with aphasia. Outcome and results: The results of the case study revealed eight themes: language assessment of bilingual Samoan-English speakers with aphasia is a hard process for the individuals involved; language assessment of bilingual Samoan-English speakers with aphasia is a team process; differences in understanding of communication impairments and the assessment process; time; preparation; appropriateness of assessment tasks, resources, and processes; uncertainty; and flexibility. The results of the focus group indicated eight categories: Speech-Language Therapists’ background, using interpreters, family involvement, Samoan language and culture, getting an initial impression of and building rapport with the individual with aphasia, assessment tasks and resources, determining which language(s) to assess and logistics of assessment. Conclusion: Language assessment of bilingual Samoan-English speakers with aphasia is a challenging area of Speech-Language Therapy practice. Challenges are multifaceted and although some challenges may be present in all language assessment with individuals with aphasia, they are further exacerbated by the addition of multiple languages, people, and culture. Helpful strategies identified in this study may aid in improving the overall experience.

If you belong to the dominant culture of your society, it is relatively easy to build an identity and conform. You understand how things run, what is expected of you, and how to meet those expectations. You have freedom to decide whether or not you will fit in. But have you ever considered what it must be like to belong to a minority culture? I certainly didn't, even though the primary school I work in is multicultural. Sixteen years ago, when I arrived, I assumed that it was up to the Samoan students at our school to assimilate into the Anglo-Saxon education system I had grown up with, despite the fact that many of them had been born in Samoa. But something happened over the years. An almost instinctive awareness grew amongst the Samoan parent community about the importance of the maintenance of their children's first language and culture. As a result of much hard work, my school has a Samoan bilingual class, where students learn, and learn in, two languages. The goal of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of the bilingual class from the point of view of students who had left the class at least two years previously, and now attended secondary school. They shared insights into the life of the class, and what they believed were the long term effects for them. Most of what they shared about the class was very positive and affirming, and they attributed feelings of confidence and self esteem to the warmth and cultural nurturing of the class. The ability to speak fluently, and learn in, their first language promoted a sense of identity and self worth. They felt proud of their Samoan identify and equated their abilities in Samoan as crucial to that. This report, then, is about the journey from assimilation of a minority culture into the majority one, to the realization of the rights its members have to maintain their own identity, and the benefits that result.

This study presents an analysis of the interactions observed among the West Polynesia islands of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, using concepts of regional systems and trade networks. The connections between these island groups in the period between the 1770s and the 1870s are examined in extensive detail. In particular, this analysis takes the theoretical framework of the world-systems approach of Chase-Dunn and Hall and applies a method involving networks of exchange to this region. These networks include the information network, the bulk products network, the political/ military network and the network of prestige valuables. Archival data show the operation and content of these networks and demonstrate that with the influx of European products in the early colonial period, there was an efflorescence of long-distance exchange in this region. This analysis of networks linking the island groups suggest that Fiji, Tonga and Samoa should be viewed as a regional unit instead of three distinct societies for many subjects of investigation.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-78). / vi, 78 leaves, bound ill. (some col.) 29 cm

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 15-16). / vii, 20 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Yale University, 1928. / Maps on lining-papers. Without thesis note. "This essay was awarded the John Adison Porter prize, Yale University, 1928." "The fourteenth volume published under the directions of the department of history on the Kingsley Trust Association Fund established by the Scroll and Key Society of Yale College." "Bibliographical note": p. [582]-592.

No description available.

No description available.

This qualitative study describes maternal and paternal experiences of thirty-five Samoans living in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. The study was conducted in order to establish, "What, if any changes to parenting practices have occurred since their family migrated into New Zealand?Through interviews, respondents discussed their values, attitudes and beliefs and how they perceived that they were brought up by their own parents. They also described and discussed their own roles as parents and the roles of their children. They also discussed how the church influenced the ways in which their parents parented them and the way they themselves parent their children. Respondents were chosen via a snowball technique of referrals from four different church ministers. The four churches were selected on the recommendation of one Samoan Church Minister as being representative of the Samoan community. Four ministers were interviewed, along with four elders and five parents from each church. Seven other people from outside these churches, four not church attenders were also interviewed in order to be able to further explore the importance and effects of the churches. The theoretical approach engaged a combination of the principles of Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and the 'Fa'afaletui,' (Tamasese, 1997.) The latter is a Samoan framework which gives a multi-layered approach to data interpretation using a range of lenses and perspectives. In conducting this investigation, the combination of Western and Samoan frameworks was appropriate especially given the cultural sensitivities that were apparent around the topic matter and the ethnicity of the respondents and the researcher. Earlier findings, concerning discipline by (Fairbairn-Dunlop, 2002) were affirmed, as were findings about fa'alavelave from the earlier study into parenting practices (McCallum et al, 2000). In this present study, it was found that enculturation (i.e changes in culture) over time, modified parenting practices and specifically that inter-generational perspectives about parenting practices were apparent. Evidence of conflicting approaches to values between generations was encountered and a range of rituals were adapted as a consequence of migration and time; discipline and fa'alavelave were prime examples of this. The relative paucity of a body of Pasifika literature and Pacific research by Pacific people, from which a theoretical foundation for a study of this kind could be developed, was seen to be problematic. It is concluded that enculturation following migration spawns a reconstruction of values and associated practices in parenting and that previously held core values concerning discipline, the church and the family become altered over time and generations. It is also suggested that future research should seek to corroborate the findings of this study by examining the parenting practices of the next generation.