Title: Accounting education, democracy and sustainability: taking divergent perspectives seriously

Authors: Judy Brown; Jesse Dillard

Addresses: School of Accounting and Commercial Law, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand ' School of Accounting and Commercial Law, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand; Dixon School of Accounting, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA

Abstract: How might accounting educators foster greater awareness of, and facilitate democratic dialogue about, divergent socio-political perspectives regarding sustainability? Rather than focusing on business perspectives that emphasise a 'business case' approach to sustainable development, how might they enable the expression of a range of viewpoints? Building on an emergent body of literature seeking to foster pluralistic approaches to accounting theory and practice, this paper reflects on the possibilities of developing accounting education for sustainability based on ideas of agonistic pluralism. In the process, it highlights how mainstream accounting's reliance on neoclassical economics has contributed to the monologic approaches that currently dominate accounting, including accounting education.

Keywords: accounting education; neo-classical economics; democracy; pluralism; agonistics; politics; citizenship; neoliberalism; participation; sustainability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPEE.2019.098168

International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, 2019 Vol.10 No.1, pp.24 - 45

Received: 01 Apr 2017
Accepted: 16 Dec 2017
Published online: 05 Mar 2019 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article