The topic of this thesis was to study parents’ participation in day care center. The aim was to make quality thesis by finding out how parents see their own participation in matters related to the activities of the day care center and how they would develop their participation. The thesis was made in co-operation with a private day care center in Western Finland.

The theoretical background consists of participation, ECEC partnership, early childhood education and social pedagogy. Previous studies and the new law on early childhood education were also used in this thesis. The research material was acquired by three individual interviews during the fall in 2015. The material was analyzed by thematic methods and quotations were used in reporting the research results.

The main research result was that parents are remarkably pleased with the participation in the day care center. According to the parents especially friendly and warm relationships with the personnel and the good atmosphere in various events advance the participation. The parents also pointed out some suggestions to develop the participation, among other things open doors morning and planning group consisting parents of the children.

It would be easy to study this topic further, for example day care staff’s opinions about participation could give useful proposals of improvements. Another research topic is to study the electronic communications that the day care center uses – what advantages and disadvantages the parents and personnel find in using them.