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William Foote Whyte Quotes

1914–2000 United States

William Foote Whyte (June 27, 1914 – July 16, 2000) was an American sociologist, chiefly known for his ethnographic study in urban sociology, Street Corner Society. A pioneer in participant observation, he lived for four years in an Italian community in Boston while a Junior Fellow at Harvard researching social relations of street gangs in Boston's North End.

United States
Academics
Anthropologists
Sociologists

Also known as: William F. Whyte

Random William Foote Whyte quote

7 quotes

An organic system is like a fountain balanced upon a pyramid of fountains.

Instead of getting a cross-sectional picture of the community at a particular point in time, I was dealing with a time sequence of interpersonal events.

We didn't rally them there. We never went looking for trouble. We only rallied on our own street, but we always won there.

They [social workers] were always calling police stations telling them. 'There is a riot in the Northon street settlement. Send the riot squad right away.' A couple of cops would come down and joke with the boys [Native Whites], because they were good friends.

[The Hawthorne studies was] perhaps the first major social science experiment... and we feel that continued efforts in this direction will yield rich returns in the development of the social sciences.

William Foote Whyte (1946)

Full-time participant observation over an extended period of time tends to be an age-graded phenomenon. Such studies are most likely to be done by young people, in our student years. When we are established professionals, with teaching or other professional responsibilities, we are unlikely to have the time and the motivation to make such a full commitment.

The personnel man should regard personal resistance as entirely normal and simply as presenting problems that he has to contend with. At the same time, he must have a clear idea of his own role and functions. He must be prepared to explain them fully when asked. He must also be prepared to take a firm initiative in cases where others take such actions as may jeopardize his role.

p. 170; As cited in: Ickis (2014)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: William Foote Whyte (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.