The objective of this study was to understand the current state of dance education in Korea and prospect its future by examining the development of Korean dance education in response to historical and social changes as the factors of educational environment. Through literature review and field surveys, I studied school dance education based on the government’s education policies, other dance education activities outside school, and the trends of research on dance education in academic circles, and presented the results and problems of dance education in Korea. In the results of this study, dance education in Korea can be divided into three periods according to the government’s education policies. The first period is the early period (1945～1961) when the concept of education dance and the perception of professional dance education were established with the foundation of the Chosun Education Dance Research Institute. The second period is the authoritarian period (1961～1992) from 1960 to the beginning of the 1990s when dance education was fully institutionalized. The third period was the democratization period (1993～2008) when ‘the publicness of dance education’ was emphasized. In this way, from the 1st National Curriculum to the present, dance education in Korea has been regarded as an area of physical education in elementary and secondary education, and its contents have been gradually developed into an art curriculum. In educational policies or systems, however, there are problems to be solved as follows. First, in the aspect of educational equality, opportunities for dance education should be provided to all people with none excluded. Second, the dance curriculum should be specialized. Dance education, which is regarded as a part of physical education, cannot produce its educational and artistic values in terms of the contents and operation of education. Thus, for the specialty and identity of the dance curriculum, dance education should be separated from physical education and secure its specialty and autonomy in the contents and operation of education. Third, the differentiation of advanced dance education is required in order to cope with changing needs of society and to provide productive job opportunities. Each university should have distinguished education goals and construct dance infrastructure in each area for raising creative international manpower. Fourth, dance capitals should be expanded for lifelong education. When the four solutions are implemented, dance education in Korea will display its strength and influence.