17552. STREET CORNER SOCIETY BY WILLIAM FOOTE WHYTE. This paper critiques Whyte’s 1943 monograph and assesses its claim to be described as a “classic ethnography”. Concludes that Street Corner Society can rightly be called a classic ethnography for a number of reasons, including because it established or developed many of the methodological approaches subsequently used by sociological researchers. Whyte’s entertaining and highly readable study is especially useful to those who are interested in analyzing contemporary youth gangs or other groups of underprivileged youth. KEYWORDS: sociology youth gangs street cornerville urban studies ethnography. Written 2005. APA Style. 7 pages, 10 footnotes, 2 bibliographic sources. 1,781 words.