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The paper documents the reasons for the reluctance of fieldworkers to formalize and codify their methods of data creation. While these reasons are not directly challenged, it is asserted that the conventional emphasis on the experimental foundation of fieldwork practice may usefully be replaced by a consideration of its communicational and interactional foundations. Some implications for the teaching and learning of fieldwork are outlined.

The publication of the two-volume work The American Soldier in 1949 (Stouffer, Samuel A., et al, Princeton, Princeton U Press), as part of the Studies in Social Psychology in World War II series, aroused great scholarly interest & debate. The books were highly praised & severely criticized, & their analysis of massive worldwide data on US Army troops were widely influential. The methodological contributions included attitude scaling & scalogram analysis, field experiments on interview effects, experiments on persuasion & attitude change, & detailed analyses of large datasets in conjunction with firsthand observations of behavior. The studies demonstrated the importance for group cohesion & morale of formal military organization in interaction with small-group processes. Data from combat troops showed a relatively low prevalence of intense hostility toward enemy soldiers. Obligatory aggression in the face of severe danger, it was concluded, was sustained because of external threat from the enemy together with authoritative direction from a cohesive social organization. Among the major ideas that developed or were elaborated out of the research of The American Soldier were the concepts of relative deprivation, reference groups, structured resentment, & social control of fear. Also, The American Soldier analyzed an unprecedented body of data on racial attitudes, showing that black soldiers strongly rejected segregation & discrimination & emphasized democratic & equalitarian values. This assessment suggests that these studies had important influences on social science & made permanent additions to basic knowledge. 83 References. AA