Sociological Differences Between Roadville And Trackton

“Ways with Words: Languages, Life and Work in Communities and Classrooms” is a classic ethnographic study done by the famous American linguistic anthropologist Shirley Brice Heath. In this book Heath presents the differences in the learning of language use; at home and at school ny8by children in Roadville and Trackton, two communities which are few miles apart in the south eastern United States. Roadville is a white working class community and they are involved in the ‘life of textile mills’ for four generations whereas Trackton is a black working class community, the older generation of which was imbued in land farming and the present generation is involved in the textile mills. Heath conducted the ethnographic study from 1969 to 1978 to
The white settlers of the Piedmont, the term used to refer to the region came from the Middle colonies and Virginia and the black from the Coastal Plain and the Tidewater Region. It was in the 1960s and 70s that both the communities felt the incessant need to be “on the rise”. Until then both these communities gave little importance to schooling and education as work in mills and lands were of primary concern. Roadville community has not got enough of schooling but they believe it to do something toward helping an individual “get on”. Though the Trackton adults have little schooling, they believe it has made difference in other people’s life and thus can do the same in their lives too. (pp. 29). Both the communities attach immense importance to school education as they believe that it can get them out of the
Men are considered to be the breadwinners of the family. The womenfolk is not restrained from work but they are not considered the major source of income of the family and it is expected that women take care of the children. And it is the duty of women to take care of household while men are supposed to maintain the houses. The Roadville community equates hard work with the income and thus if money is insufficient to run family it is assumed that someone is not working hard enough. They never look at cutting expenditure as a source of income. The Roadville community expects its children to imbibe the best from both “old ways” and “new ways”. There exists a hierarchy of power in the Roadville community and they assume that the old knows more than young and men know more than women. In Roadville raising children is the duty assigned to the respective parents and the children, after the toddler age are supposed to play and involve in other social activities with same sex individuals alone. The Roadville parents assume that their responsibility related to schooling is only to see if the children go to school regularly and the children rarely ask for help from the parents. The Roadville mothers are more interested in the education of their children when compared to Roadville fathers, who seem to be more interested in the athletic abilities of their children. The Roadville women who attend the adult education