This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Three answers, three countries, one open-ended question: "Teaching is similar to what other occupation or activity?" We asked this question to more than 3,000 people across the United States, England and Australia between May 2025 and March 2026. Coaching was the front-runner across all three countries.
But the similarities partially diverged there. Respondents in England and Australia more often compared teaching with professional roles such as nursing and social work. U.S. respondents, meanwhile, more often likened teaching to parenting and religious roles, such as a cleric or pastor.
In the three countries, however, one other idea stood out: Teaching was primarily associated with a caring relationship. We have previously examined how Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. find common ground on what makes a good teacher, despite the polarization in the country on education and many other issues. This time, we wanted to know whether people across countries had similar ideas of teachers.
In all three countries, respondents most often described teaching as centered in the relationship between teacher and student: a form of coaching, caregiving, parenting and other types of personal support. Coaching was the most common answer in each country, but its prominence varied. Coaching was named by 30% of U.S. respondents, compared with 23% in England and 23% in Australia.
The differences became more pronounced when participants named other occupations and activities. Respondents in England and Australia were more likely to associate teaching with institutional, credentialed and paid professional roles, such as nursing, lecturing and social work. They care for and look after people while they are at their most vulnerable.
Teachers do a similar thing by caring and teaching young people some of the skills they will need later in life," a 39-year-old Australian man told us. "A lecturer, you are passing on knowledge to people, usually the younger generation," another 32-year-old man in England said. Compared with respondents in those countries, U.S. respondents were more likely to describe teaching through caregiving roles, such as parenting, and through religious figures, such as priests, pastors or rabbis.
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