Development education emerged from the desire by governments with aid budgets and development non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to secure greater public understanding and support for international development. As a field of learning, development education became increasingly influenced by the thinking of Paulo Freire and allied to areas such as global education, global learning and global citizenship, has become a feature of education practice within a number of European countries. But this influence has been linked primarily to the work of NGOs. If development education and its related terms are to have any major educational influence there is a need to re-conceptualise the field with the context of a learning framework, the knowledge society and the impact of globalisation on education.