Identity, Variety and Destiny in Accounting Education for a Social—Environmental and Liberal Arts Tradition

When one considers that all profits are not made equally, philosophy, history, anthropologybecome pre-requisites for professional accounting and finance graduates. This allows for acomplete understanding of an intimately related financial market that exerts tremendous influenceon socio-economic conditions. A graduate from a liberal arts institution may be worthmore than what his or her academic balance sheet shows. A liberal arts education teaches onehow to think, how to analyze, how to read, how to write, how to develop a persuasive argument.Any liberal arts education, even vaguely defined becomes an intellectual antidote to theoverwhelming flood of information and technological change. A liberal arts education teachesstudents to read and to reason; to learn something about the range of human expression; to considerthe great literature and ideas of world civilizations; to recognize and construct arguments;and to have sensitivity towards others’ thinking. It also makes possible a genuine kind of citizenshipwithout which democracy and markets crumble. This study presents emerging trends inaccounting as a growing discipline in liberal arts institutions whose mission is aligned withsocial goals. Copyright © www.iiste.or