Too many ‘two-ways’? ‘Gäwa is a two-way school’: clarifying approaches to remote Northern Territory Indigenous education

The expression ‘two-way’ teaching and learning has a long history in the Northern Territory in relation to remote Indigenous education. However, it is not applied with any degree of consistency; the term ‘two-way’ functions as a summary expression for a diverse array of pedagogical approaches. This article presents qualitative research from the remote, Yol?u ‘homeland’ community at Gäwa in north-east Arnhem Land as Indigenous first-language, case-study data. It also aims to disambiguate ‘two way’ models as current community aspirations are compared with historical policies and applications of ‘two-way’ approaches from across the Northern Territory. These include Indigenous perspectives, Indigenous learning-style, team-teaching, bilingual education, ‘bothways’ education and domain separation.