Doctors Are The Most Trusted Profession Among School Children

Our new survey on trust in professions conducted among over 2,600 secondary school age children finds that doctors are the most trusted profession.

Doctors are the most trusted profession among school children; journalists and the ordinary person in the street are least trusted

Secondary school-age children trust teachers and the ordinary person in the street less than their parents do

A new Ipsos MORI survey of over 2,600 secondary school age children finds that doctors are the profession most trusted to tell the truth, while journalists and the ordinary man or woman in the street are the least trusted. Eighty-eight percent said that they felt doctors could be trusted to tell the truth, compared to just 13% who said the same for the man in the street. Half (49%) say they do not trust journalists to tell the truth.

School teachers rate well, with 62% of children saying they trust their teachers to tell the truth. As 17% do not trust them, their “net trust” score (the proportion who trust them, minus the proportion who do not) is +45%. However, on this measure they do not make the top five professions, ranking sixth behind the clergy (+46%) scientists (+53%), judges (+64%) and the Police (+71%), as well as doctors.




There are differences by ethnicity: although the base is relatively small (133 schoolchildren), children from black ethnic backgrounds are significantly more likely to report distrust in a wide range of authority figures. The most striking examples include teachers, where net trust among black schoolchildren lags by at least thirty percentage points (+9%, compared with between +43% and +51% for other ethnicities), and the police, where the gap is bigger still at around 40 percentage points (+25% for black pupils, versus +67% to +75% for other ethnicities).



This data can also be compared against the most recent edition of the Ipsos MORI Veracity Index, a telephone poll of adults aged 15+ conducted in November 2016 that asked the same question about a similar list of professions. The key differences between adults and children in trust in professions are:

• Adults trust teachers much more than schoolchildren do – the net trust score for teachers amongst adults was +79%, compared to +45% for pupils
• Schoolchildren are substantially less trusting of the “ordinary man/woman in the street”, giving them a -30% net trust score. For adults the score was +36%, a difference of 66 percentage points.
• Schoolchildren are less distrustful of politicians; they are evenly split on the trustworthiness of government ministers (-1% net trust), and mildly distrustful overall of politicians generally (-12%). The figures for adults are -56% and -67% respectively.
• Other professions where pupils are more trusting than adults include the Police (a net trust difference of +27 percentage points), bankers (+55ppt difference), local councillors (+25ppt) and lawyers (+23ppt). Pupils are also more positive about – but still distrustful of – estate agents and journalists.
• Other professions where children are less trusting than adults include hairdressers and TV newsreaders.

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