Parental participation and connectedness through family social capital theory in the early childhood education community

This paper examines the ways in which parents talk about their participation in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), and the factors that, according to them, promote parental participation. Although parental participation has been studied to an extent as regards children’s academic attainment, up-to-date knowledge on the broader phenomena related to parental participation is lacking. The data were collected from a Finnish ECEC center that has a long tradition of encouraging parental participation in its operational environment in municipal ECEC center and were analyzed through the Social Capital Index. The results provide targeted knowledge on what tools could perhaps be functional in supporting parental participation. The findings indicate that the feeling of participating and being active is strongly influenced by the feeling of connectedness to and within the ECEC community among parents, children, and ECEC educators. The opportunities, structures, and traditions that enable parental participation are essential.