Harrison White facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Harrison White
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| Born | March 21, 1930 Washington, D.C., U.S.
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| Died | May 19, 2024 (aged 94) Tucson, Arizona, U.S.
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| Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton |
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| Doctoral students | Edward Laumann, Michael Schwartz, Mark Granovetter, Peter Bearman, Ronald Breiger, Barry Wellman, Richard Lachmann, Christopher Winship, Ann Mische, Kathleen Carley |
Harrison Colyar White (born March 21, 1930 – died May 19, 2024) was a very important American sociologist. He taught at Columbia University for many years. White helped start a new way of thinking in sociology called the "Harvard Revolution" and the "New York School." These ideas focused on how people are connected in social networks instead of just looking at individuals.
He created special math models to understand social structures, like how jobs are filled or how groups are connected. Many social network researchers looked up to him. One expert even called him "Copernicus and Galileo" because he came up with both the big idea and the tools to study it. His main ideas are explained in his book Identity and Control. In 2011, he received a top award for his amazing work in sociology.
Contents
Harrison White's Life and Career
Early Life and Education
Harrison White was born in Washington, D.C. on March 21, 1930. He had three siblings. His father was a doctor in the US Navy, so his family moved often. Even so, he thought of Nashville, TN as his home.
At just 15 years old, he started college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He earned his first degree at 20. Five years later, in 1955, he got his PhD in theoretical physics from MIT. His physics research was published in a science journal. While at MIT, a professor encouraged him to explore social sciences.
Moving to Sociology
After his physics PhD, White received a special scholarship to study sociology at Princeton University. He worked with several important professors there. His class was very small, with only a few other students.
At the same time, he also worked as an analyst at Johns Hopkins University for a year. During this time, he published research on how queues (lines) work. He also spent a year as a fellow at Stanford University, where he met other smart people interested in how groups behave.
He then became a professor at Carnegie Mellon University (then Carnegie Institute of Technology). He insisted that "sociology" be part of his job title.
While at Stanford, White met his first wife, Cynthia A. Johnson. Together, they studied French Impressionist painters. Their work, Canvases and Careers, looked at how changes in art institutions affected artists. White realized that the way art was organized, not just individual artists, explained big shifts in the art world.
Even as a student, White published his first social science paper in 1960. It was about sleep, showing that it's not just a biological act but also a social one. For his sociology PhD, he studied a company's research department. He used special questions to map out how different teams and managers were connected. He earned his PhD from Princeton in 1960.
University of Chicago Years
In 1959, White became a professor at the University of Chicago's Sociology Department. Many famous sociologists worked there. White said this time was his "real socialization" into sociology. He advised his first graduate students here.
While at Chicago, White also finished his book An Anatomy of Kinship (1963). This book looked at family relationships using math models. It helped establish him as a leader in building models to understand society.
The Harvard Revolution
In 1963, White moved to Harvard University as a sociology professor. He taught an introductory course that became famous. He didn't like existing textbooks, so his course used readings from many fields, not just sociology.
White strongly criticized the old way of studying sociology, which focused only on individual traits. He became a leader of what was called the "Harvard Revolution" in social networks. He worked with other researchers who studied small groups, which fit well with his ideas about networks. Many future important network thinkers were influenced by him at Harvard.
White stayed at Harvard until 1986. After a divorce and wanting a change, he became the head of the sociology department at the University of Arizona for two years.
Columbia University and Later Years
In 1988, White joined Columbia University as a sociology professor. He directed a center for social sciences there. This was during the start of another big change in network analysis, known as the "New York School of relational sociology." This group combined cultural studies with network studies. White's major book, Identity and Control, was key to this new way of thinking.
In 1992, he became the Giddings Professor of Sociology and chaired the department for several years before retiring. He lived in Tucson, Arizona.
Harrison White's Big Ideas
White's work helped people see society as a web of connections, not just a collection of individuals. This idea was quite new and different.
Many social scientists try to find averages in groups of people. For example, they might say "the average person feels this way." This can be useful but doesn't explain how individuals are connected or how groups work together. White and his students developed models that look at the patterns of relationships to understand how social groups form and behave. This led to new fields like economic sociology and network sociology.
Identity and Control
White's most important book is Identity and Control. The first version came out in 1992, and an updated one in 2008.
In this book, White explains that our social world, including who we are, comes from our relationships. He argued that we often mistakenly think about things based on their "attributes" (like qualities). For example, we might think of a "leader" as someone with certain traits. But a leader only exists because of their relationship with "followers." Without those connections, there's no leader. Similarly, an organization is a network of relationships. It only "exists" because people follow and maintain those connections. White wanted us to think beyond simple descriptions and see the deeper patterns of relationships.
Markets from Networks
Harrison White also wrote Markets from Networks (2002). This book explained that markets are not just about buying and selling, but are deeply connected to social networks. He showed how things like uncertainty and competition are shaped by these networks. His ideas influenced both sociologists and economists.
Latest Research
Before he retired, White was interested in how language works. He also studied how business strategies fit into his models of social connections.
White's Influence on Others
Harrison White trained many influential researchers in sociology. His students went on to develop important ideas in network analysis. This happened during both the "Harvard Revolution" in the 1960s and 70s, and the "New York School" in the 80s and 90s.
One of his students, Michael Schwartz, took notes from White's undergraduate course at Harvard in 1965. These notes, called Notes on the Constituents of Social Structure, were passed around among students for years. They became very influential in American sociology.
Many of White's early students at Harvard became leaders in network analysis. For example, Edward Laumann created a popular way to study personal networks. Barry Wellman studied how networks connect communities, including early online communities.
One of White's most famous students was Mark Granovetter. Granovetter studied how people find jobs. He found that people often get jobs through "weak ties" (acquaintances) rather than close friends. This idea, called The Strength of Weak Ties, came from White's lectures. It helped scientists understand that society is made of many close groups connected by weaker links. This idea influenced later researchers like Malcolm Gladwell and others who study how things spread in networks.
White also worked with students on "vacancy chains." This idea explains how jobs or roles are filled, showing that the roles themselves and the people who fill them are separate but connected. This helped scientists measure society in new ways, not just with statistics about individuals.
In the 1970s, White and his students developed "blockmodeling" and "structural equivalence." These methods help identify "positions" or "roles" in a network based on how people are connected, rather than just their personal traits.
At Columbia, White trained a new group of researchers. They pushed network analysis further, adding ideas about culture and language. Many of his students became important professors and researchers in sociology.
Personal Life and Death
Harrison White passed away in a care home in Tucson, Arizona on May 19, 2024, at the age of 94.
Selected Books
- Harrison C. White (2008), Identity and Control: How Social Formations Emerge (Second Edition), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0-691-13715-3
- Harrison C. White (2002), Markets from Networks: Socioeconomic Models of Production, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
- Harrison C. White (1993), Careers and Creativity: Social Forces in the Arts. Boulder, CO: Westview Press
- Harrison C. White (1992), Identity and Control: A Structural Theory of Social Action, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Selected Articles
- Harrison C. White, Frédéric C. Godart, and Victor P. Corona (2007), Mobilizing Identities: Uncertainty and Control in Strategy, Theory, Culture & Society 24:181-202.
- Harrison C. White (1997), Can Mathematics Be Social? Flexible Representation for Interaction Process in its Socio-Cultural Constructions, Sociological Forum 12:53-71.
- Harrison C. White (1995), Network Switchings and Bayesian Forks. Reconstructing the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Social Research 62:.
- Harrison C. White (1995), Social Networks Can Resolve Actor Paradoxes in Economics and in Psychology, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 151:58-74.
- Harrison C. White (1994), Values Comes in Styles, Which Mate to Change, Chapter 4th in Michael Hechter, Lynn Nadel and R. Michod, eds., The Origin of Values. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
- Harrison C. White and Cynthia A. White (1993), Canvases and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World, University of Chicago Press, Chicago (French translation, La Carriere Des Peintres au XIXe Siecle: Du systeme academique au marche des impressionistes, Antoine Jaccottet, tr., Preface by Jean-Paul Bouillon, Flammarion Press: Paris, 1991.)
- Harrison C. White (1992), Markets, Networks and Control, in S. Lindenberg and Hein Schroeder, (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Organization, Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press, 1992.
- Harrison C. White (1988). Varieties of Markets, in Barry Wellman and S.D. Berkowitz, (eds.), Social Structures: A Network Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
See also
In Spanish: Harrison White para niños
