• The Mathematical Education
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.191-207
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• 2021

Recently, the number of multicultural families has significantly increased in Korea, and this trend creates a need to understand how successfully students from multicultural families achieve their mathematics learning. To understand and predict the changes in mathematics learning achievement of these students over time, we conducted in this study a latent growth mixture model analysis. The study findings show that the majority (92%) of the students from multicultural families experience a decrease in their mathematics achievement over time as their grade level goes up. It was found, in particular, that female students are likely to have lower initial achievements and rapid decline over time more than male students and that the decline over time was more severe for female students than their male counterparts. The findings of this study convey several implications on the how to support the students from multicultural families. First, the result of this study was different from the outcomes of previous studies that presented the income of the household and the education level of the students' parents as major factors that determine the academic achievement of the students from multicultural families. Furthermore, the study indicates the need for more research to identify variables related to the mathematical achievements of the students from multicultural families and the need to use these research findings to develop public support plans for the students from multicultural families.