Samoan Women: Widening Choices

Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific. 2003. Trade paperback. Very good.. 161 p. Includes: illustrations, index, bibliography. . Educators, a statistician, NGO workers, a doctor, a lawyer, government workers, and consultants discuss formal and informal aspects of education, employment, health, law, and religion. Their analysis of economic participation includes labour and remuneration through the factory, field, mill, and village. Their examination of people's welfare encompasses adolescence, reproduction, life-style diseases, traditional medicine, AIDS, old age, and suicide. Their review of education covers gender statistics, enrollments, examination rates, participation by women in the education workforce, distance education, the legal profession, theological education, and networking. The writers are university women who address challenges for women in the new millennium, widening horizons while retaining the best of Samoan traditions. As well as reviewing historical information, this volume presents new, rich data on Samoan society by its most up-and-coming workforce; its women. Contemporary Samoan society cannot be analysed without this book.