Pluralism is a very central but elusive contemporary value. Pluralism is the belief that diversity is beneficial to society. Most of us would agree, but what does diversity exactly mean? How to measure it and tell whether a society is more or less diverse?

Cultural pluralism, political pluralism and value pluralism all have slightly different meanings, but they all share the belief that coexistence of diverse opinions, ways of life and value systems is enriching for all members of a society.

What makes pluralism such a hard topic is that it deals with human values (usually the focus of pluralism) and sociocultural identities (often referred as diversity) that are incommensurate. It will never be possible to objectively compare, let alone quantify, what makes people different, to determine which of sex, gender, ethnicity, religious belief or political conviction contributes more to a diverse society.

Does it mean we should stop trying to measure diversity? On the contrary! What we need are many measures examining pluralism and diversity from various aspects. The more pluralistic measures we gather, the more they will make us think and say something meaningful about the level of diversity in a society.

The aim of this open source project is to gather models, techniques and use cases on how to measure pluralism and diversity, so that they could be reused and expanded by any data scientist or researcher interested in the topic.

Please feel free to contribute, share your own analysis, add comments and links in the Github reference section. This is an ongoing project without a formal deadline. An event or publication could be considered depending on the quantity and quality of contributions. Make sure to post your contact details or send an email at contact@plural.world if you would like to stay informed.