When, in 1964, a conference in this field was held in Manchester,1 not many courses on development were being taught. The conference was in fact not so much about problems of teaching as about the subject itself especially whether growth models, derived from the dominant neo-classical school, were appropriate. Since Thomas Balogh, Nicholas Kaldor and Joan Robinson were among those present, the discussion was lively and iconoclastic. The conference was, perhaps in retrospect something of a landmark, the first major occasion on which the then current orthodoxy in 'development economics' was on the defensive.

By the end of the 1 970s, teaching about development had proliferated in Britain. Most universities had established at least optional units on subjects such as 'economics of underdeveloped countries' for undergraduates studying economics or social science, and East Anglia had pioneered a complete undergraduate degree in the subject. Several universities had also established graduate courses. Meanwhile, the subject itself had been changing.

Experience was revealing the limited significance (even dangers) of economic growth in the sense of an increase in some income aggregate. This was becoming sharply distinguished from 'development', which was increasingly seen as a largely political and social process. Consequently,those teaching development economics began to pay more attention to 'social factors'; courses on the 'sociology' of development, etc appeared, and some expressly interdisciplinary ones were established.