Restricted Access: Structural Gatekeeping and the Black Student Experience in Accounting Education

<p>This study explores the experiences of Black accountants as they reflect on their memories of the pipeline to their profession and the affective dimensions of their educational experiences as accounting majors in college. Grounding into Unapologetic Black Inquiry (UBI), a framework rooted in critical race theory, this investigation integrates narrative inquiry as a tool to capture rich descriptions from participant interviews and written reflections. Furthermore, this descriptive qualitative study explores how the structures and values of accounting education are rooted in a form of professionalism that prioritizes technical proficiencies over cultural knowledge, thus ignoring community forms of assets related to Black student experiences. The investigation found that Black accountants who participated in the study associate the notion of "professionalism" in accounting education spaces as a mechanism for reinforcing white norms, values, and ways of understanding. These findings reaffirm other analyses in education scholarship that suggest diversifying professions requires investigating how professional standards, practices, and pipelines reflect the views of dominant cultural groups. Among the implications of these findings is the need to redefine professionalism to include greater historical and community understandings of the political, cultural, and economic dimensions of Black life in the United States. To improve diversity in the accounting field likely requires pedagogical approaches that build from these dimensions of diverse students' experiences.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD Education for Social Justice

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation: Open Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Learning and Teaching

Year dc:date.available

2025

Author dc:creator

• Hurt, Richard W, III

• Accounting
• Black accountant
• Black CPAs
• Higher Education
• Professionalism
• Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research
• Educational Leadership
• Higher Education and Teaching

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digital.sandiego.edu/dissertations/1072

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digital.sandiego.edu:dissertations-2085