Oscar  Odena Author of Evaluating Organization Development
FEATURED AUTHOR

Oscar Odena


University of Glasgow

Oscar Odena is Professor of Education at the University of Glasgow, UK. Previously he worked at universities in Spain, England and Northern Ireland. His expertise combines music education, creativity and qualitative research, with a focus on how music and creativity can be used as a tool for social cohesion. Publications number over 80 papers and three books with Routledge.

Biography

In the early 2000s, Oscar researched music teachers’ perceptions of creativity in England, funded by the Catalan Government. The results of that study can be found in his first edited book Musical Creativity: Insights from Music Education Research, published in 2012.

Since 2007, with grants from The Bernard van Leer Foundation and the UK Economic and Social Research Council, Oscar carried out extensive fieldwork on the uses of music to alleviate tensions in post-conflict Northern Ireland and to integrate newly arrived children in Scotland. He applied social psychology theories to investigate the transformative potential of the arts, stimulating debate about effective practice. His research in Northern Ireland is included in the 2018 monograph Musical Creativity Revisited: Educational Foundations, Practices and Research.

More recently, in collaboration with Colombian and Spanish researchers, he has developed a methodology to study a music program for social reconstruction in Colombia. He has led several projects on the role of the arts for inclusion and social cohesion, supported by funders such as the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. His recent work can be found in his third book for Routledge, Music and Social Inclusion, published in 2023.

Oscar started at the University of Glasgow over a decade ago. Before coming to Glasgow, and after obtaining a PhD from UCL Institute of Education in 2003, he worked at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya, University of Barcelona, Queen’s University Belfast, University of Brighton and University of Hertfordshire.

Websites

Books

Featured Title
 Featured Title - Music and Social Inclusion - 1st Edition book cover