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How many jazz musicians do you think there are in New York City?
April 23, 2007 1:08 AM

How on earth would someone be able to count the number of jazz musicians in NYC? It's really hard to find us:

They tend to be itinerant. Also, poor. Go to the clubs, and those likely to be performing are the more successful ones. Ask the musicians' union, and chances are those enrolled will be disproportionately older and account for only a fraction of the total.

So how would a sociologist find us? Try the "Snowball Sample" technique:

Researchers pursue what is called a "snowball sample," seeking out workers who then recruit their friends in a process they liken to a chain letter, or to the "six degrees of separation" theory of connectedness. A mathematical formula is applied to the sample like a "corrective lens," explained Douglas Heckathorn, the Cornell sociologist and a former Russell Sage visiting scholar, in order to obtain a sample that is "theoretically independent of its nonrandom starting points."

Professor Heckathorn's technique is being applied across various disciplines to find other "hidden" workers, including one by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify intravenous drug users susceptible to AIDS.


"What the methodology allows us to do is get at a representative population that is often hidden from policy researchers," said Annette Bernhardt, deputy director of the poverty program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. "This has the potential to revolutionize how we identify, measure and respond to critical social and economic problems."

Professor Heckathorn is also now applying the method to a study of artists and sculptors who have reached retirement age. He said, though, that not every group can be sampled using this method:

"There are certain requirements: The people have to have a connection," he said. "It wouldn't work to find tax cheats."

So, how many jazz musicians are there in the New York City metropolitan area?

30,000!

(but how many of them can really swing?)...

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