Moving beyond experts’ answers: unmasking silences of the social in management accounting courses

Two U.S. accounting educators reflect on their experiences deploying resources in a manner that highlights human elements that have traditionally been downplayed in cost/management accounting pedagogy. Structured as a critical essay and a field report, the authors ground their discussion in perspectives from Freirean (1972) pedagogy and Hirschauer’s (2006) work on the “silences of the social.” Conventional assurance of learning protocols, content specification guidelines for certification programs, and statements from accounting professional bodies influence accounting educators to deliver “appropriate”, objectively measurable, and seemingly neutral information based on current rules and best practices. A limitation of this approach is that the most important issues in a society may be those where either (1) a consensus on best practice has not yet been determined or (2) positions favored by authorities are less than optimal for some members of society. The primary contribution of the paper is to render visible “silences of the social” that mask subjective human aspects embedded in management accounting pedagogy. The authors’ tentative recommendation is that critical thinking elements should be introduced early in the curriculum and not reserved for the masters’ level.