Introduction

The field designated as critical accounting was virtually unknown as recently as 40 years ago. Since that time it has grown at an exponential rate, resulting in a rich and varied body of insights that have contributed much to the contemporary understanding of the role that accounting, understood as a set of technical practices, and accountancy, understood as a major institution, play within society. As a consequence, critical accounting has powerfully demonstrated the academic discipline of accounting’s credentials as a social science, whose myriad intricacies it readily evidences. For a growing number of those who teach accounting in an academic milieu, it is now almost inconceivable that they will not introduce their students to critical accounting in some degree. The collection of contributions included in this volume has been commissioned to further enable this process.