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This article provides information about the account of various steps involved in the process of measuring cultural liberty:
Cultural statistics have dealt with the production and consumption of “cultural goods” films, books and theatre. Its opposites are measured in the following way:
i. Language, religion, history, clothing, customs, ceremonies, cuisine and values among other things, interact to define cultural identity, all of these ways to understand culture provide ways to exclude cultural identities such as language policies, treatment of different religions, school curricula and attitudes within society.
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Information can be collected on these issues but rarely is. Beyond the simple data availability problems are the analytical challenges of converting information in to statistically useful numbers. One possible approach is qualitative assessment expert assessment of the severity of the situation — on issues that are important to many cultural identities, such as language and religion.
ii. Measurement of social, economic, and to lesser extent political exclusions along ethnic, linguistic and religious lines is more advanced. Often lacking, however, is a breakdown by culturally identified groups. Some data collection includes such questions on religion, ethnic and linguistic identity and some post-censal surveys focus specifically on these cultural groups, but they could be more comprehensive and comparable. An important issue is allowing people to register multiple identities. Political exclusion is more difficult to capture. There are some hard data, such as representation in parliament and voter participation.
But other issues, such as freedom of expression movement and organisation, are more difficult to capture and require qualitative approach. More work can be done at the country level, where understanding of the issue may be greater. This could involve improved data monitoring and collection such as including questions on identities in survey questionnaires and post-censal surveys targeted at specific cultural groups as well as qualitative assessments. At the international level leadership by an international statistical body could bring sharper focus to what is a formidable and urgent task. For example, the UNESCO Institute of Statistics has already done much work in measuring culture.
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The coordinating institution could advocate for collection of information, such as the inclusion of national surveys of question on cultural identity, and could be the lead depository for these data. In more qualitative areas of cultural and political exclusion enormous benefits could accrue from having an international institution take the lead on comprehensive approaches to these complex issues at the country level.
There are demands not only to produce statistics on issues of culture but also to go farther and produce a cultural liberty index. A lesson of the human development index and other composite indicators is that measures need not be grounded in a conceptual framework and must be policy relevant as well as measurable and comparable.
Conceptual and methodological challenges are enormous for capturing such an issues as discriminatory policy and social practice and the extent of historical neglect that cultural groups face. The problem is more than empirical. Unlike some other aspects of human development, such as health and education, where many countries face common challenges, the challenges in dealing with cultural exclusion are more diverse. It will never be fully possible to compare homogenous Japan with diverse India, or how Europe is dealing with issues posed by immigration with how Latin America is meeting the demands of indigenous people for land self rule.