Educational Leadership and Curriculum Innovation: Integrating STEAM and the 6Cs Into Literacy in UAE Primary Schools

Abstract

The UAE places education at the heart of its national transformation, with Vision 2031 emphasising innovation, global citizenship, and 21st-century competencies. Yet, a gap persists between policy ambitions and the classroom reality, where traditional literacy practices and assessment pressures limit innovation. This study examines how educational leadership shapes integration of STEAM principles and the 6Cs—Critical thinking, Creativity, Communication, Collaboration, Citizenship, and Character—within literacy instruction in UAE primary schools. Drawing on transformational, distributed, instructional, adaptive, ecohumanist, and digital–ethical leadership theories, and informed by global and regional scholarship (Fullan, Leithwood, Mansilla, Abbas, and Alalawi), the study explores how leaders interpret and enact national reform priorities. A qualitative case-study methodology was used, incorporating semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and classroom observations to triangulate leadership perspectives and practices. The study explores how educational leadership practices influence the integration of STEAM principles and 21st-century competencies in primary literacy education in the UAE. The findings show that leaders expressed a strong commitment to innovation and alignment with national visions, but implementation remained uneven. Teacher motivation and collaborative culture were evident, yet constrained by exam-driven accountability, limited interdisciplinary structures, and the absence of clear STEAM–literacy frameworks. Leadership practices were relational and supportive, but often informal and unsystematic. The study concludes that meaningful STEAM–literacy integration requires strengthened leadership capacity, coherent assessment policies, sustained professional learning, and school-wide structures such as PLCs and coaching. Limitations include the small sample and single-school context. Future research should examine multiple schools and track long-term changes in leadership practice.