As international exchanges in diverse areas has expanded with a rapid development of information technologies, every society in the global community needs to understand each other's culture as well as to establish its own cultural identity in the age of culture. In the 1990s, art educators in Korea began to pay attention to cultural aspects of art education. Known as VCAE(visual culture art education), a new trend of art education has been continuously discussed in Korea since the beginning of the 21th century. However, there are still misunderstandings of VCAE among art educators. In this study, the researcher identifies what their misconceptions of VCAE and examines the possibilities of VCAE as a means to do visual inquiry about traditional culture and establish our cultural identity. It deals with two questions: 1) Can VCAE be expanded to include traditional culture? 2) How can visual culture art education focusing on cultural identity contribute to art education in Korea? To examine these issues, the researcher collected student art works and their critiques from a paper crafts lesson for preservice teachers at a national teacher education institution in 2005. This study selected a case study as research methodology, analysed the data collected, and discussed them. to find the answers of the questions. The study showed that traditional culture can be explored in VCAE by examinig themes derived from Korean old tales and this will help students to establish their own cultural identity.