After two years at the State University of Iowa, he was offered a position at Harvard in the Graduate School of Education.
In 1963 he transferred to the Department of Social Relations, where he taught and conducted research in anthropology and comparative child development.
The study assigned teams of anthropologists with interdisciplinary training in psychology and child development to six sites around the world: The six cultures studied are "Nyansongo: a Gusii community in Kenya" (Robert A. LeVine and Barbara B. LeVine); "the Rajputs of Khalapur, India" (Leigh Minturn and John T. Hitchcock); "Taira: an Okinawan village" (Thomas W. Maretzki and Hatsumi Maretzki) ; "the Mixtecans of Juxtlahuaca, Mexico" (Kimball Romney and Romaine Romney); "Tarong: an Ilocos barrio in the Philippines" (William F. Nydegger and Corinne Nydegger); and "the New Englanders of Orchard Town, USA".
[4][5] The Whitings continued work on comparative child development, both with their own fieldwork and through many students and collaborators, throughout their careers.
In 1982, John and his wife, Beatrice (née, Blyth) Whiting, won the American Anthropological Association's Distinguished Service Award.