Nearly half the population do not know whether parents should take the side of a child or their teacher when there is a dispute over an allegation of misbehaviour.
The findings come in a YouGov poll, released today, which found that younger adults were less likely to take the teacher’s side than older adults.
The survey asked: “When a teacher reports that a child has been misbehaving at school and that same child denies that they have, whose side do you think the child’s parents should take?”
Among the general population, 47 per cent said parents should side with the teacher and 11 per cent said they should side with the child. But 42 per cent answered “don’t know”.
Picking sides
Support for the teacher increased with the age of the respondents.
Among 18-24 year-olds, 34 per cent said parents should back the teacher, rising to 57 per cent among those aged 65 or above.
And when it came to backing the child, 18 per cent of 18-24 year olds said parents should back the child, falling to 10-11 per cent among older people.
The poll, which was conducted today, asked 5,541 adults in the UK, weighting their responses to be representative of the British population.
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