Study: Morocco Ranks Among Top Countries Valuing Children’s Manners, Global Survey Finds

King’s College London has published the results of its study on children’s good manners, obedience and unselfishness, carried out as part of the World Values Survey (WVS), one of the most important and widely used university social surveys in the world. Titled "Parenting priorities: international attitudes towards raising children," the study took into account the latest available data sets for 24 countries, which were collected during the latest edition of the World Values Survey, spanning from 2017 to 2022.

It emerges that Egypt tops the ranking in terms of good manners. 96% of the adults surveyed said that good manners should be a parental priority. Egypt is followed by Nigeria (89%). With 88%, Morocco completes the top 3 of countries where adults believe it is particularly important for children to learn good manners. The United Kingdom ranks sixth. 85% of the adults surveyed said that good manners are essential. Americans are the least inclined to care about children’s good manners with 52% compared to 76% in 1990.

Regarding children’s obedience, Nigeria tops the ranking with 58%. It is followed by Mexico and Egypt, with 57% and 56% respectively. The United States is in the bottom half of the table with 21%, far behind Japan, which attaches the least importance to obedience. Only 3% of Japanese adults said it was a particularly important quality for children. Since 1990, many Western countries have placed less importance on obedience. "For example, in the United States and Australia, the share of the public who think this quality is particularly important has halved. In the former, it fell from 39% in 1990 to 21% in 2017, and in the latter, it dropped from 39% to 19% between 2005 and 2018," the report notes.