A Practical Approach to Measuring Cultural Diversity on Australian Organizations and Schools

Abstract—Although there is an abundance of academic literature addressing the importance of cultural diversity, there is a significant lack of discussion afforded to actual methodologies employed when measuring diversity. Our research comprises the development of a set of quantifiable dimensions of diversity that can be benchmarked, compared over time, evaluated against adjustable variables and used to provide recommendations. Our research begins with a literature review to assess existing models for measuring diversity. This data is used to identify a model of measurement that allows for the quantification of three key parameters that constitute cultural diversity: ethnicity, language and belief. In this paper, we will review current methods used to measure cultural diversity, which provides the background for the introduction of our newly developed index for measuring the cultural diversity of groups based on three distinct parameters of the ethnicity, language and worldviews (beliefs) of community members. This index has been developed for implementation in a digital tool called Ancestry Atlas that provides visual insights to the diversity of particular groups.

Credit: Rezza Moieni, Peter Mousaferiadis, and Carlos Oscar Sorezano