Abstract
The values held by women who live in Harare, Zimbabwe were examined as those values were expressed in the proverbs used by the Shona people in Zimbabwe. Proverbs were used earlier with AfricanAmerican women to obtain assessments of values. With the assistance of a panel of experts, 15 proverbs were selected from a book of 1,000 Shona proverbs. The proverbs were found to be equivalent to 15 of the 30 proverbs that had been used in an original list. Women were asked to rate each value according to its importance in their own belief system and as a value to be passed on to their children. They ranked values of caution, hard work perseverance, and delay of gratification as important for them and as important enough to pass on to their children. The use of proverbs was found to be an effective way of getting to the beliefs and values of women from another culture.
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