Education Policy Commons^™

Would You Like Values With That?: The Role Of Chik-Fil-A In Character Education, Deron R. Boyles

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

I explore three main lines of inquiry: (1) the specifics of “Core Essentials” as a strategy for teaching character; (2) the role (and ironies) of private businesses influencing public school curricula; and (3) the assumptions inherent in the kind of teaching of character outlined by “Core Essentials.” Girding this inquiry is a concern about the problematic enterprise of teaching character, itself, as if it were an unquestionable domain. Further, the oddly-but-related contexts of childhood obesity findings and Christian influences (both general symbolism and fundamentalist indoctrination) on and in public spheres will be considered via Theodore Brameld’s Ends and Means in …