Building on the notion of validity claims within the discussion on international knowledge transfer in religious education as a field of research, three views on the contextuality of knowledge are discussed. From a classical perspective in the sociology of science, the issue of validity must be treated irrespective of matters of context. Secondly, from the perspective of postcolonial studies, this naïve view is criticised as a veiled form of Eurocentrism. Thirdly, these two general views are concretised in light of a reception process bridging the Global South and the Global North. To this end, exemplary factors contributing to the inclusion of Paulo Freire's pedagogical work in discourses on religious education are analysed. What emerges through these analyses is a differentiated view of validity resting on the de- and recontextualisation of knowledge that allows for it to oscillate between different contexts.