  We consider the evaluation of the quantum discord and other related measures
of quantum correlations in a system formed by a spin 1 and a complementary spin
system. A characterization of general projective measurements in such system in
terms of spin averages is thereby introduced, which allows to easily visualize
their deviation from standard spin measurements. It is shown that the
measurement optimizing these measures corresponds in general to a non-spin
measurement. The important case of states that commute with the total $S_z$
spin parity is discussed in detail, and the general stationary measurements for
such states (parity preserving measurements) are identified. Numerical and
analytical results for the quantum discord, the geometric discord and the one
way information deficit in the relevant case of a mixture of two aligned spin 1
states are also presented.
