Learning to Dialogue:

Towards a Critical Pedagogy

for Public Finance and
Accounting Management
Practice

Dr Andrew Armitage
Anglia Ruskin Unversity

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Learning to Dialogue: Towards a critical pedagogy for public finance and accounting management practice Dr Andrew Armitage

Abstract
Critical accounting sees the world as socially constructed and intrinsically linked to organisational, social
and political contexts. Whereas mainstream accounting historians study accounting history in terms of
the progressive development of modern techniques and practices, a Foucauldian analysis challenges the
very notion of its historical progress (Ryan et al, 2002). Hopwood (1987) in his comments concerning
the archaeology of accounting systems has questioned the traditional notion of its historical progress
showing how research into its practices has become ‘what it is not’. Miller and O’Leary (1987) have also
discussed the ‘governable person’, showing how standard costing and budgeting are part of the complex
social and organisational management practices that have developed to regulate individual action in the
name of economic efficiency (Ryan et al, 2002). Further, the public finance and accountancy management
professions have not adopted what might be termed a “critical stance” towards its practices, being trapped
within a modernist target setting culture (Armitage and Keeble-Allen, 2009 and 2010). As such, I will discuss
the context in which financial management and accountancy operates and the response found within a
critical pedagogy that espouses emancipatory and authentic educational practices underpinned by the
dialogical process.

Key words: Critical theory, critical pedagogy, dialogue, critical accounting.

Introduction: Financial Management and Accountancy Pedagogy in Context

Whilst current public and political discourse has directed its rhetoric at the greed and sharp business
practices of the financial institutions and stock markets, it is often overlooked that whilst they delivered
new found riches under the mantra of ‘masters of the universe’ wider society and those who work in the
public sector chose to ignore their dubious working practices and ineffectual regulatory framework. The
public sector under New Labour in the UK has experienced a rapid expansion (17%) since 1997 and now
employs 6.039 million of the working population and contributes more than 50% to GDP (ONS, 2009).
However, whilst extolling the virtues of unprecedented economic growth that New Labour delivered, wider
society absolved its political and financial responsibilities, allowing others (for example financial institutions)
to take decisions on its behalf. Whilst society thought its new found wealth and economic growth was built
on solid fiscal policies it was not prepared to question how the UK was “earning its keep” on the back of
dubious financial dealings and the increasing influence of financial institutions in “the city”. Only when the
economic meltdown was upon us did we complain of our demise, forgetting that as a collective, society
was responsible for its (self-inflicted) downfall and the architects of its own misery. In short it did not
practice responsible capitalism. Society at large deferred (and still does) its responsibilities to the powerful
(financial) elites who have directed its economic and political fortunes. As such, economic, financial and
business practices have not resulted in (more) social justice, social mobility or equality of opportunity
(DfES, 2003; OECD, 2008; DfBIS, 2010). This is also true of financial management and accountancy
practices, that espouse monetary profit over welfare profit, and where personal values are directed by high
remuneration packages, and career progression takes precedence over societal norms and the collective
spirit (McPhail, 2001). This is founded upon ‘instrumental reason’ and has resulted in ‘soft relativism’,
because capitalism (so we are told) works best when left to the forces of free market economics (Taylor,
1998). Several commentators have previously anticipated such a situation (Armstrong, 1987; Ponemon,
1990 and 1992; Jeffrey, 1993; Gray et al, 1994) and the culpability of accounting education in the demise
of, and alienation of the profession from society. As Lehman (1988) (cited by Gray et al, 1994:57) who
states that:
‘It seems unlikely that accounting students who receive only an occasional random chapter devoted to
integrating business and ethics, within a four year university education, are receiving any long-lasting
,meaningful, or rich understanding of the complexities regarding ethics in our society.

Accounting students are trained in how to do....This is tantamount to establishing that the first task of
teachers is to serve the economy by turning out ‘skilled robots and uncritical consumers for the hi-tech
age’ rather than regard the classroom as a place to question rules and standards, a place to direct,
formulate and cultivate character and the ethos of life.

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Education should, by definition, be a human advance, something we can morally approve of, denoting
an increase in human achievement. Can we say that the emphasis in accounting education.....entail[s] a
qualitative human advance?’

It has also be argued that these attitudes have entered uncritical pedagogical practices and discourse of
the financial management and accountancy professions and as McPhail (2001:475) has noted, it would
seem that accounting education:
‘....provides students with a shallow uncritical attitude towards accounting and the function it performs
so that accounting students seem unwilling or unable to critically analyse the function of accounting
within society or to take such a critiques seriously’.

As such, for those entering the financial management and accountancy professions, a university education
is no longer viewed by students as an opportunity to expand their horizons. Rather it is regarded as a step
to claw one’s way to a middling career (The Australian, 2002). As Tilling and Tilt (2002:4) note:
‘Critical accounting in the tertiary syllabus should have provided an opportunity for students to develop
their ability to think critically about the system in which they would one day work and to question the
way that they contributed to an ethical and just society. And surely this is the role of accounting if it is to
hold itself out as a profession.’

Whilst critical accounting has a long history of ‘critical’ disciplines from Plato through to Marx and (Gramsci,
1971) that question the hegemony of dominant social and cultural perspectives (see also Armstrong, 1985
and 1987; MacIntosh and Scapens, 1990; Llewellyn, 1993), they are, however, firmly grounded within
positivistic and instrumentalist practices of economic efficiency and productivity (McPhail, 2001). This
is also true of its education practices that adhere to standardised procedures and prescribed metrics of
assessment (Tilling and Tilt, 2004). This is compounded by the use of common modes of module delivery,
assessment techniques, and learning outcomes that financial management and accountancy students
are subjected to within degree and professional programmes of study. These take no account of the
particularities of an individual’s learning needs, the organisational environments they will or do work and
function within (see for example, James, 2008, McPhail, 2001), and according to Bonk and Smith (1998):
‘Accounting educators face a common teaching dilemma in higher education today: whether to focus
on the “correct procedure” and “cover” the majority of the text material....or adopt themes that more
deeply address multiplicative views of knowledge’.

As such, university and professional financial management and accountancy programmes seem to have
adopted expediency over excellence, consumerism over connoisseurship, groupthink over genius, and
conformity over creativity (see fro example, Tilling and Tilt, 2004; Furedi, 2004; Law, 2007). This has resulted
in a marginalisation of professional and vocational programmes of study in favour of what are seen as
traditional academic qualifications (Tilling and Tilt, 2004). Furthermore, the assessment and performance
of financial management and accountancy students, whether they be on degree or professional programmes
of study, has become the quest for what Tilling and Tilt (2004) have called ‘credentialism over education’
and the ensuing debate between the concerns of the student as client or as customer. This has lead to
a contract of consumerism between lectures and students, universities and students, and universities
and lecturers, all of which are now part of a supply chain of educational products and outcomes (Armitage,
2009). As such, education has alienated lecturers, students and university administrators from each
other and has ultimately diminished intellectual freedom, innovation, integrity and the pursuit of education
for its own sake. It has been argued that individual creativity and genius has been marginalised and
those who possess an enquiring mind are now regarded as “troublemakers” (Panton, 2005). As Collins
(1979:18) notes:
‘Business schools are increasingly used as a recruitment channel for mangers, but their level of instruction
is not generally high. Most business schools prepare their students for a particular first job rather than
teaching skills that may be useful throughout the career. Moreover, the particular training taken turns out
to be irrelevant as most graduates find jobs outside their own speciality’.

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If the financial management and accountancy professions are to adopt social accounting practices (see
for example Gray, Owen, and Maunders, 1987; Gray, Owen, and Adams, 1996; Crowther, 2000; Mathews,
2007), it should be achieved in its educative programmes (Laszlo, 2009). This can be achieved by adopting
a critical pedagogy, which will be discussed in the next section.

Towards a critical pedagogy: Learning to dialogue – a proposal

Critical accounting perspectives challenge how the practice of modernist accountancy practices support
particular economic and social structures and reinforces unequal distributions of power and wealth across
society (McPhail, 2001). A critical accounting perspective is one in which accounting does not provide
a neutral or unbiased representation of underlying economic facts. It is rather the means of maintaining
the powerful positions of those currently in power, and with wealth while holding back the position and
interests of those who possess neither (Chua, 1986). It also challenges the perspective that rights and
privileges are distributed equally throughout society. Instead, they argue that most rights, opportunities,
and associated power, reside in the (power) elites. Moreover, critical perspectives usually adopt a Marxist-
inspired approach whose central concern is to study and influence the role of free creative activity in
changing and shaping ethical, social, political, and economic life along humanistic socialist lines (De
George, 1995; McPhail, 2001).

Critical accounting theory refers to an approach that goes beyond questioning the employment of particular
accounting methods. It rather focuses on the role of accounting in sustaining the privileged positions
of those in control of particular resources (capital) while undermining or restraining the voice of those
without capital (Americ, 1996; Chua, 1996; Davis and Sherman; 1996; Dillard and Tinker, 1996; Galhofer
and Haslam, 1996; Neimark, 1996; Paisey and Paisey, 1996; Reiter,1996). As such, Tinker (2005:101) offers
the following definition of critical accounting research as encompassing ‘all forms of social praxis that
are evaluative and aim to engender progressive change within the conceptual, institutional, practical, and
political territories of accounting’. This is mirrored in the pedagogical engagement of financial management
and accountancy practices which use instrumentalist rather than inclusive language, where the ownership
of the learning process resides with higher education providers and professional bodies and re-enforced
through the discourse of classroom practices (see, for example, Hughes and Moore, 1999a and 1999b).

At the root of these tensions is the domination of the modernist organisation, underpinned by power and
authority structures as a means of organisational and social control (McPhail, 2001). This has received
attention in the management and critical accounting theory literature (see, for example, Chua, 1986; Lohd
and Gaffikin, 1997; Tilling and Tilt, 2004) and challenges the precepts upon which power relations are
founded and enacted within organisational settings and the discourse(s) to be found therein. But there
has been a tendency for traditional accounting and financial management practices to be located within
what Tilt (2002) calls the “mainstream” or positivistic paradigm of practices as opposed to “alternative”
(interpretive) theories (see, for example, Chua, 1986). As such, accounting and financial management has
traditionally focused upon processes and practices founded upon modernistic ideologies that often deny
individuals their voice. As Laughlin (1987:479) has noted:
‘While it is acknowledged that a great deal is known about the technical aspects of accounting, it
is argued that little is understood about either accounting’s social roots or the interconnection and
interrelationship between the social and the technical’.

McPhail (2001) has suggested there is a dearth of literature that offers insights into pedagogical engagement
that goes beyond the instrumentalist and positivistic attitude of traditional accounting practices (see
exceptions, for example, Tilling and Tilt, 2004; Tinker, 2005; James, 2008). A significant amount of critical
management theory asks questions regarding where powerful discourses reside in organizational settings
(Alvesson and Willmott, 2003) and how those who negotiate their lived experiences in oppressive cultures
and environments can change their situation by means of emancipatory practices and political action

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through critical pedagogy (see, for example, Freire, 1970, 1987 and 2001; Giroux, 1997). McPhail (2001)
identifies that if public service finance and accounting practices are to engage in critical pedagogy, their
educational programmes have to enable their participants’ to recognise individuals not as mere units of
production or faceless and voiceless automata behind the facts and figures on a balance sheet. As McPhail
(2001: 489) notes, accounting educators should:
‘....not confine themselves to accounting education. More critical forms of accounting education require
accounting academics to play an active role in the discourse within which the habitus of prospective
accounting students’ is shaped and their expectations of accounting education are constructed’.

It can be argued that pedagogy involves the relationship between student and teacher, the learning context,
and learning process (Bonk and Smith, 1997; Waters, 2005). This is important for a critical pedagogy and
more specifically, to an authentic educational discourse that informs professional and workplace practice,
the structuring of opportunities, and to facilitate participation and change (Freire, 1987; Freire and Faundez,
1989; Tadeu de Silva and McLaren, 1996; Billet, 2001; Moore. 2004). Further, Hughes and Moore (1999:
3-4) suggest that ‘pedagogy can be discovered in any social context where knowledge is distributed and
used’. Critical pedagogy is engagement with the world, and is more than just superficial contact with
“others” and the “what is” that confronts individuals in their daily lives and establishes a relationship of
respect, honesty and trust between teachers and students, employer and employee, provider and client,
institutions and society (Freire 1972; Freire and Faundez, 1989). It is the humanising of debate that gives
the process its value as an instrument for beneficial change.

Critical pedagogy requires those who pass through the educative process of financial management
and accountancy programmes to question not only their practice as moral agents, but that they also reach
beyond their balance sheets and question the impact their practice will have on society and individual lives
(see for example Lehman, 1988 and Power, 1991 as notable exceptions). Freire (1970 and 1972) defined a
critical pedagogy as the contextualisation within society, organisations, and history (Lodh and Gaffikin, 1997)
and the recognition that accounting is not a science, but a human endeavour (Arrington and Puxty, 1991
and Francis, 1990). This has led some to advocate dialogue as the means for the creation of democratic,
emancipatory, and transformative practices within the sphere of pedagogy and communication between
individuals and groups (see for example Boal, 1974; Freire, 1970; Bohm, 1996; Isaacs, 1999; Hermans,
2001; Giroux, 1997; Archer, 2003). For Freire (1970), transformation is central to emancipatory practices
and is central to an individual’s awareness that they ‘exist in and with the world’ (Freire, 1972:51) being but
knowing subjects who have an engagement of social, historical, political and cultural (Giroux, 1997). Freire
(1972:51) coined the word conscientization to capture this concept as ‘conscious beings that men are not
only in the world but with the world, together with other men’. For transformative practices to become reality,
Freire puts dialogue at the centre of human encounters such as learning and problem solving processes,
advocating that it can only be achieved if those involved are exposed to emancipatory practices that
nullify powerful discourses (see also Senge, 1990; Schein, 1993; Giroux; Isaacs, 1999; Oswick et al, 2008).
This can only be achieved according to Boal (1974:xvi) by the awakening of individual freedom within the
context of social-political-economic situations and as a challenge to the ‘given’ dominating orthodoxies of
those who occupy positions of power and control and manipulate those with less power (see Tinker, 2005
and Chua, 1986 from a critical accountancy perspective).

Critical Financial Management and Accountancy pedagogy in practice

The ‘Ten Principles of Critical Learning’ that are shared with students at the beginning of their course:
Principle 1: Learning and teaching is not merely the transference of knowledge.
Principle 2: L
 earning requires respect, dignity and equity of treatment of students towards each other,
tutor towards students, and students towards tutor.
Principle 3: Learning requires we take control and responsibility for our personal learning journey.
Principle 4: Learning requires we create knowledge together through critical discourse and dialogue.

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Principle 5: Learning requires that we attempt to discover how the world works; it is not merely the
acquisition of facts.
Principle 6: Learning requires transparency, accountability and justification of our opinions before our
peers and tutor.
Principle 7: Learning requires we develop and build relationships through shared understandings by
creating a learning community founded on mutual trust and dialogue.
Principle 8: Learning requires immediacy and relevance to our political, social, and cultural contexts. This
is called an authentic learning environment.
Principle 9: Learning requires the provision of a safe learning environment, which is fundamental in making
us aware of our and others’ feelings and emotions.
Principle 10: Learning requires we learn to listen, suspend our prejudices, and not pre-judge others.

What follows are possible financial management and accounting scenarios for classroom practice and are
offered as insights into the creation of a critical financial management and accountancy pedagogy.

Scenario 1: Conscientization and political-social-cultural awareness

One of the challenges facing critical financial management and accountancy educators at the beginning
of a programme of study is to open students’ horizons to issues that go beyond the confines of the critical
financial management and accountancy profession (see Boyce, 2004 and James, 2006 concerning critical
education perspectives). Students’ awareness of their wider political, cultural, and social contexts and the
impact these have upon organisational life can lack relevance and, if taught out of context, and can lead
to alienation. This requires students to move out of their comfort zone and confronted how events beyond
their organisational settings affect their professional role as critical financial management and accountancy
practitioner’s. The use of readily available information from the media can make an ‘instant impact’ upon
students’ awareness of how political, social, and cultural issues effect the critical financial management
and accountancy profession. In small dialogue groups, students use the ‘Ten Principles of Critical Learning’
to discuss a current affairs issue of interest from a selection of financial and economic journals provided.
They spend an hour discussing their chosen topic or issue considering its political, cultural and social
significance, and what impact it has on their professional and organisational practice. The discussion is
summarised and presented to other groups.

This simple exercise achieves the following. First, it invites students to dialogue in an open, safe environment
with each other. Second, it shows students there is “not a right answer”, but rather a need to justify
their answers in the gaze of their peers. Third, it creates an authentic learning environment via inductive
engagement with the world, and that it is the understanding of principles rather than a focus upon facts that
is important in coming to terms with social, political, and cultural meanings of the issues discussed (Freire,
1970). Fourth, it sends a message to students that critical financial management and accountancy is a
human endeavour that goes beyond the rules, regulations, and legislative contents of their organisations
and profession.

Scenario 2: Teaching is just not transferring knowledge

How the economy works requires an approach that not only challenges students to think differently, but also
gives them the ability to question how it functions. This calls for an inductive approach that locates itself in
their everyday reality, or what Biggs and Tang 2007:93) call ‘building on the known’ whereby students are
asked to evaluate and provide critical feedback on the following questions:
• What if interest rates rise or fall?
• What impact do interest rates have on the economy if they increase or decrease?
• What happens to your organisation if interest rates increase or decrease?
• How do interest rates affect your life?

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Having posed these questions, students discuss them in small groups from a ‘common sense point of view’
and are asked to suspend any pre-conceived ideas as to how they think the economy works. This requires
the “teacher” to respond to questions from students who are uncertain of this “alien” topic in an open,
Socratic manner by asking probing questions that develop the students’ discussion beyond the confines of
their group discussions. At this stage, graphs, mathematics, or technical jargon are not introduced to explain
how the economy works. Students “work through their thinking” inductively by discussing the topic and
building knowledge through discourse between themselves and the tutor by means of divergent questioning
(Biggs and Teng, 2007). A class discussion follows and ‘teacher’ summarises student feedback before giving
the ‘official’ version by the use of convergent questioning (Biggs and Teng, 2007) as to how the economy
works. Students are often quite amazed how close their ‘naive’ thinking coincides with the ‘official’ textbook
version. This approach shows students how they can take control of their personal learning journey. It also
reveals how the economy works through political and cultural historical contexts and the competing values
and interests of society, commerce, and industry.

Scenario 3: Authentic learning through critical reflection on practice

For many students, ethics seems to be a straightforward subject. However, instead of a textbook approach,
a case study based on a real life situation is given to students. They discuss and prepare a short (about
10 minute) presentation of their findings and report to their peers, in a feedback session, responses to the
following questions: What is your evaluation of the situation? What corporate governance issues does it
raise? Is it possible for business to be ethical? What are the implications for critical financial management
and accountancy?

This approach produces an authentic learning environment, being contextualised within their personal
experience as students have to justify their opinions in the gaze of their peers. They find, (sometimes) to
their disappointment, that they cannot decide on a definitive “yes” or “no” to the questions, leading them
to challenge the whole notion of what is meant by business ethics or if ethical critical financial management
and accountancy practice can exist. The discussions lead them to question: What happens if ethical values
conflict with legal requirements? What happens if my values clash with the organisation? How would I
handle this in my workplace? The role of the tutor is to listen and observe group interactions and dialogical
exchanges so that these used in the summary and feedback session. However, what emerges from this
inductive process are typically issues concerning duty, responsibility, moral relativism, legalism versus
morality, cultural dysfunction, bullying, power bases and human character. The group presentation and
feedback produces further discussion as competing perspectives enter the debate, and shows students
the value of discovery through dialogical exchanges.

Scenario 4: From professional knowledge to professional practice

Students do not often see themselves as being the experts during their time of study. However, instead of
transferring information as in a traditional class situation from teacher to student, the delivery of material
can be deigned to help students think about Management and Financial Accountancy within the its current
and future developments. This involves students to think and act together in small project teams about
how certain concepts can be applied to more effectively to their profession. One current example is the
financial crisis and the failure for the Finical Regulatory Authority to address the internal failings of the
banking system and the financial markets. Students, in small groups are asked to produce a User’s Guide
for “better” ethical and lawful professional practice for a bank or financial institution of their own choosing
that is to be used on staff induction courses for new recruits. This for many students can seem to be
quite a challenging task as it forces them to explore issues that are outside the mainstream financial and
accountancy syllabus of “profit and loss accounts” and “balance sheets”. It asks them to explore aspects
of human resources and the nature of induction programmes.

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This particular activity requires students to self organise, the input of the tutor being minimal at the “forming”
stage of the group work. Whilst this approach appears to be unstructured and lacking a firm direction from
the tutor, it is in fact one that enables students to take control of their learning and to explore issues that
interests or are a cause of concern to them within the context of the current austere financial climate. In other
words, it is an approach that enables studetns to connect knowledge to practice. The group present their
User Guide to their fellow students in a 30 minute presentation and answer session. They are also asked
to design and produce learning materials and tasks for new recruits who will participate on their induction
programme. Besides presenting their work to their peers, each group member is asked to present a portfolio
of their individual contribution they made to the design and presentation of their induction programme.

Scenario 5: Developing awareness of self and other

Students are not always exposed to the demands of Management and Accountancy practice if they follow
a full time programme of study, and those who might choose to study for professional qualifications may
not be in a senior position to have the experience of chairing a meeting. Leading a discussion within a
seminar type environment is a method where students can be provided with an opportunity to develop self
awareness and leadership skills required within the “world of work”. The class is divided into two groups,
those advocating and those opposing a response to a topic set by the teacher. Students in each group
are asked to take on the roles of group leader and debaters, and to prepare for a one hour debate on the
topic the following week. This means that no-one escapes presenting their ideas to the opposing side. One
student, under the guidance of the teacher chairs the debate. The topic is advanced by the teacher one
week prior it the class debate and decides by lots which group is to defend a “yes” or a “no” argument. For
many students this can be a difficult exercise to perform. First it forces them to take an affirmative stance,
and it may be one that goes against their preconceived ideas they might have on the topic of debate.
Second, it forces them to take a more informed and critical stance on the topic. Third, it covers several
aspects of the ‘Ten Principles of Critical Learning’ for example Principle 2: Learning requires respect, dignity
and equity of treatment of students towards each other, tutor towards students, and students towards
tutor; Principle 4: Learning requires we create knowledge together through critical discourse and dialogue;
Principle 6: Learning requires transparency, accountability and justification of our opinions before our peers
and tutor; Principle 9: Learning requires the provision of a safe learning environment, which is fundamental
in making us aware of our and others’ feelings and emotions; Principle 10: Learning requires we learn to
listen, suspend our prejudices, and not pre-judge others.

Implications for critical financial management and accountancy praxis

If we are to change critical financial management and accountancy pedagogy, we have to challenge the
ownership of the “intellectual and moral high ground”. As Freire (1970 and 1996) extols, we have to move
the teacher-student relationship from that of object-subject to that of subject-subject. This can only be
achieved if financial management and accountancy classroom practice re-evaluates its traditional didactic
and dialectical practices. As such, an approach that requires an authentic learning environment is one
where learners are engaged in transformational engagement in the socio-historical-political worlds of self
and other. This requires a critical pedagogy which asks students to reflect on the social context of critical
financial and management and accountancy practice and the power relations underpinning the social
context they inhabit as students and practitioners (Thanem and Wallenberg, 2009). As Freire (1996:33)
notes, ‘only in this way can we speak authentically of knowledge that is taught, in which the teaching is
grasped in its very essence, and therefore, learned by those who are learning’. This also requires educators
to submit themselves to a similar attitude whereby they acquire new knowledge in the process of teaching,
including knowledge of the process and creation of knowledge-in-transformation.

Whilst critical pedagogy is the genesis of a journey that engenders dignity and respect, it goes beyond these
limits by empowering individuals to develop their creative spirit. It is advocated here because the process
of dialogue is central to organisational life is a point that should not be lost in critical financial management
and accountancy pedagogy and practice. As such, classroom practice should develop dialogical practices
whereby individuals gain insights that go beyond their socio-historical-political worldviews and in which
win-win situations are created in the development of common meanings (Bohm, 1996a). Members of

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existing organisations will have already developed a number of different types and forms of relationships
between one another and with their organisation. There may be a pre-existing hierarchy or a felt need to
protect one’s colleagues, team, or department. There may be a fear of expressing thoughts that might be
seen as critical of those who are higher in the organization or of norms within the organizational culture.
Careers, or the social acceptance of individual members, might appear to be threatened by participation in
a process that emphasises transparency, openness, honesty, spontaneity, and the sort of deep interest in
others that can draw out areas of vulnerability that may long have been kept hidden (Bohm, 1996b; Armitage
and Thornton, 2009). Organisational dialogue needs to commence with an exploration of the doubts and
fears that participation will entail. The creative potential of dialogue allows a temporary suspension of any
organisational structures, relationships and power bases (Armitage and Thornton, 2009).

Organisations have inherent, predetermined purposes and goals that are seldom questioned. This can only
be challenged and changed within classroom practice if critical financial management and accountancy
the profession is to realise the human potential and creative impulses of individuals. As Bohm (1996b:130)
notes, ‘In participation we bring out potentials which are incomplete in themselves, but it is only in the whole
that the thing is complete’. However, he goes on to note that ‘it is important to communicate and have a
dialogue, to listen to each other and everybody. Listening, and sharing these views, then perhaps we can
go beyond them’ (Bohm, 1996b:132). It is suggested that because the nature of dialogue is exploratory, its
methods continue to unfold shared meanings and understandings. There are no firm rules for conducting a
dialogue because its essence is one of constant learning. Dialogue not the just the consumption a body of
information, facts, or doctrine imparted by an authority, nor is it merely a means of examining or criticising
theories and issues. Rather, it is part of an unfolding process of creative participation between individuals
(Bohm, 1996b). This requires critical financial management and accountancy classroom practice to resist
and re-think the temptations for teaching in rote learning fashion to a syllabus in order to ensure learning
outcomes are systematically “ticked-off” and thus reducing the educational experience to a reductionist and
mechanical process. We have to adopt other strategies that “extract” students’ experiences by introducing
the notion of understanding what Valentin (2007) identifies as group processes and the dynamics of group
work in the early stages of a programme.

Conclusions
If financial and management accountancy pedagogy is to regain a moral high ground, the adoption of a
critical attitude is essential in its journey to social acceptability and respectability. I have advocated that this
commences in the education of those entering the profession and the adoption of a critical pedagogy that
informs ethical and value lead practices. Dialogue is not a panacea; however, apart for a few exceptions, it
has been featured little in the extant financial management and accountancy literature. It is not a method
or technique designed to succeed all other forms of social interaction, nor will it be useful in all contexts.
However, once begun it becomes a continuing adventure that can open the way to significant and creative
change by revealing a coherent purpose of shared meanings. The beginnings of a critical pedagogy must
commence in the classroom if new entrants to the profession are to acquire the skills of the “collective
dance” to enable organisational learning to take place in response to the rapid change of business and
organisational environments (James, 2008). The “critical turn” is the recognition of the individual voice in
organisational settings, the rejection of the meta-narrative and the acceptance of the personal experiences
individuals want to share with the world. This can only take place if educational practices encourage
organisational learning environments through dialogue, which supports human freedom, imagination
and ethics imbedded in the “cultural norm” of organisational hierarchies. I therefore offer the following to
stimulate comment and debate in the furthering of a critical pedagogy within the financial management and
accountancy professions:
Critical pedagogy upholds ethical and moral values in the pursuit of individual liberty and freedom.
They support and create working environments where individuals can critically judge business and
management practices without fear of retribution. They uphold and respect the dignity of individuals
by giving them a voice and meaning to their social and work environments in their pursuit of intellectual
freedom, fulfilment and expression of thought.

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Learning to Dialogue: Towards a critical pedagogy for public finance and accounting management practice Dr Andrew Armitage

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