Debate over the Methodology of Whyte’s Street Corner Society

Abstract

William Foote Whyte’s Street Corner Society is a classic study in which research was carried out on an Italian slum in a large US city. The methodology and conclusions of the study, however, depart from the standard typology. It was not community research, or a case study, and it did not even fit the narrative model of qualitative research. Whyte’s study did not use quantitative methods and yet reached analytical conclusions. Interpersonal relations are its primary focus. It tries to reveal the patterns of recurring group activities with the objective of capturing the hierarchy in small groups and the rules these groups are guided by. This article examines the motivations of Whyte’s influential study, his research strategy and his main method – participant observation. In the concluding section of this article there is a discussion of the basic paradigmatic debate in which Norman K. Denzin, Laurel Richardson and others criticised the methodology of the Street Corner Society while Arthur J. Vidich and other scholars praised this study’s innovative approach