Within the framework of the so-called valon model, we argue that a substantial part of the nucleon spin, about 40%, is carried by the polarized valence quarks. The remaining is the result of cancelations between gluon polarization and the orbital angular momentum, where the gluon polarization is the dominant one. It is shown that the sea quark contributions to the spin of any hadron is simply marginal and consistent with zero. Our findings point to a substantially smaller value for a8 than inferred from hyperon β decay, suggesting that full SU(3) symmetric assumption needs to be reconsidered. New and emerging experimental data tend to support this finding. Finally, we show that within the model presented here the experimental data on the polarized structure functions g1,n,d are reproduced.

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