View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Southern Queensland ePrints A Critical Theory and Postmodernist Approach to the teaching of Accounting Theory by Kieran James* Charles Sturt University Acknowledgements The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments of David Ardagh, Jenny Kent, Graeme Rose, seminar participants at Charles Sturt University, two anonymous reviewers, the editor (Tony Tinker), and especially the encouraging words of Mary Kaidonis, on earlier versions of this manuscript. Grateful thanks are also extended to Jenny Leung for typing up the interview transcripts, to Jenny Leung and Simon Yong for interpreting one of the interviews where the interviewee chose to receive and answer questions in Chinese Mandarin, and to Setsuo Otsuka for introducing me to the fascinating sociology of education literature. * Lecturer in Commerce, School of Commerce, Charles Sturt University, Locked Bag 588, Wagga Wagga NSW 2678, Australia. Tel: +61 2 69332518. E-mail address:
[email protected] (K. James). 1 A Critical Theory and Postmodernist Approach to the teaching of Accounting Theory Abstract This paper outlines my teaching philosophy for the Accounting Theory subject. A Critical Theory and Postmodernist approach is recommended, which makes full use of non-accounting “tangential” material (Boyce, 2004) and material from popular culture (Kell, 2004; Nilan, 2004). The paper discusses some classroom interactive activities, as well as interview results from interviews conducted with eleven international students and one Australian student at Charles Sturt University. The teaching approach proposed in this paper is to conduct classroom interactive activities which study theories and research results from a range of disciplines in order to illustrate key points that apply equally as much to accounting theories and the accounting research process, e.g.