The 1987 second-tier wage agreement between the federal public service and the government provided for the restructuring of employment in the public service, including the integration of job classifications and extensive job redesign. This paper is based on research, conducted within a department of the federal public service, into the process of integrating data entry processors and their functions into the mainstream clerical work area. It also examines the wider process of participative work design, in particular its ability to provide a mechanism for worker participation and to improve the workers' quality of work life. In terms of the integration of data entry and clerical streams the process has been very successful. There is some dissatisfaction and disenchantment on the part of some clerks, but for most workers it has provided positive and worthwhile improvements in job satisfaction. In terms of the participative work design, the process has been less successful, although it seems to have contributed to a shift in organizational culture toward increased participation and consultation with workers.

This paper was generated as an experimental collaborative writing exercise as part of the development of conceptual, theoretical and methodological resources of the Space, Place, Body Faculty of Education Research Group at Monash University. A group of higher degree research students undertook an exercise in body/place writing by going on a walk in the nearby Morwell National Park and producing a piece of writing in response to that experience. The responses became the data for the collaborative writing of a paper which followed the standard format of a thesis. Key theoretical influences included the writings of Elizabeth Grosz, Bronwyn Davies and Margaret Somerville. The process was found to generate a wide range of embodied walking stories. Analysis of the written reflections highlighted individually complex and different responses to place and ways of experiencing place. Through the collaborative process, intersections of meanings and new learnings about the ways in which we interact with place were facilitated.

Aims and method All third year senior house officers (SHOs) training in psychiatry in Scotland were canvassed by a postal questionnaire.They were asked about their views on training and the Impact of the Caiman reforms In psychiatry. Results Results showed that 33% of trainees were not receiving one hour of consultant supervision per week. The quality of teaching in day release programmes was rated as average or poor by 75%. Three-quarters had not seen a copy of A Guide to Specialist Registrar Training, but had a good knowledge of the changes It proposed. Most were satisfied with their clinical training but expressed concerns about the Caiman reforms. Clinical implications The lossof the registrar grade has extended the time trainees spend as SHOs and there was concern that there would be a loss of breadth of training. We intend to repeat the survey In mid-1999, by which time the Caiman changes should be fully operational in psychiatry.

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