Anyone can not deny that parent involvement in early childhood education is essential for young
children's holistic development. However, parent involvement has often resulted in the frustration of both
parents and staff/teachers and needed for a transformation of it. As the beginning of the transformation,
this paper aims at seeking a direction for parent involvement in early childhood education through looking
into Playcenter of New Zealand and BOink of the Netherlands, which have embodied a typical
‘bottom-up’ parent involvement.
The common features of Playcenter and BOink are as followed. Firstly, they have empowered each
member of the parent group. Secondly, they have sought pubic values through parent involvement.
Consequently, they both have build the parent community not with focusing on members' homogeneity,
but with respecting and recognizing each member's difference and competence. This indicates that the
transformation of parent involvement needs to start with recognizing the dynamic aspects of parent groups.
Furthermore, it is suggested that in order to guarantee parent's autonomy and subjectivity, institutional
strategies are provided in national level.