I am almost through reading William Foote Whyte's "Street Corner Society."
I was very impressed by the idea of a young man being motivated to take on a project like this. I sense his real desire to find a way to improve conditions, but on the terms that made sense for his co-researchers/participants rather than based on someone else's ideas of a 'good way to live.' By the way, this is the first on a list of classic works in social science that I plan to work my way through. Despite the age of this work (the observations took place mostly in the late 1930s), I was struck by the insight in some of his observations about group dynamics, among other things. I know that I am working backward in a way, but I would like to become more grounded in social science. This is in many ways what I would describe as ethnography. I am left with what may be a long lasting distrust of big city police. I have to wonder (and confess that I do now know my law enforcement history at all) if at some point after the activities in this book if the police force of Eastern City (Boston) was completely revamped to weed out the corruption. Hard to imagine - the scenarios Whyte described read as too possible; too true to life to me, even now in 2013. I was also struck by some comments in a later article that Whyte wrote - you can view the newest animation on page 3 of QNG to get a little sense of that information.
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AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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