Since the beginning of the 20th century, “Folk Songs” have been commonly recognized as “songs that naturally include the emotions that we feel in our daily lives.” In this paper, I have sought to examine how the perception of folk songs in Korea has influenced early folk singing education and educational issues with regard to the aims of folk song education in the early 1920s and 1930s. In this thesis, I examined the perceptions of people living in the Joseon era to folk songs through examining the writings of intellectuals in the early 20th century. Also, I focused on the background and context that influenced colonial policies and national culture and the values that associated with folk songs that were considered as a form of provincial arts in the 1920s. In addition, I undertook a study focusing on the collection of folk songs and lyrics, revolving around the literature specialists of the Keijo Imperial University. During the Japanese colonial period, when musical education in schools centered around Changga, Ewha College was the first to pay attention to the values of folk songs and started educating students about folk singing. However, the type of folk song edcation at this time caused controversy among the musicians of those days, in that it was sang in chorus and was accompanied by musical instruments, such as the piano, with a western style harmony. The controversy that took place at this time, regarding folk singing education can be viewed as a result of the clash between traditional culture and western culture. Also, westernized folk songs became the source of controversy and confusion with respect to educational values and goals because these types of folk songs were taught until the second half of the 20th century. In the colonial period of the early 20th century, there was a debate about the values of folk songs among intellectuals. Folk songs were collected as a part of colonial policy and were studied by literature majors. However, ever since NHK started collecting and broadcasting popular folk songs of Japan in the 1930s, the perceptions that held way in Joseon became very different from perceptions in Japan – in Japan the values of folk songs were recognized as “music”. In other words, Joseon focused on collecting and studying the “lyrics” of folk songs rather than the “music” itself, and this proves that there was no genuine folk song culture. As a result of the investigation carried out in this paper, it is suggested that the values of folk songs, a form of song culture that captures the feelings of joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure in the daily lives of people were neither discussed nor studied in this manner by the people who lived in Joseon in the early 20th century, only the literary values of folk songs were emphasized. This study can be seen as the result of the concept and value of “folksongs”, which focused on the sociopolitical background in which folk song arose, and this study was carried in a brief and cursory manner without discussing the characteristics of folk songs or related musical expressions, due to the influence of Japanese colonial rule.