In recent years, in Korea, the number of studies about ‘multicultural education’ in a variety
of subjects have increased. There are few studies, however, in the field of mathematics. For
these reasons, we analyzed the distribution and the description of historical mathematicians in
the seventh grade mathematics textbooks. The analytic frame of this study was twofold: 'the
diversity' and 'the equity', each from the perspectives of ‘multicultural education.’ The result
of the analysis shows that although mathematicians of various cultural backgrounds were
presented. most of the mathematicians in the textbooks were European males. This suggests
that most of the mathematical facts in mathematics textbooks were discovered by European
males. In addition, most of the textbooks depicted the achievements of a particular
mathematicians without reference to their relationships. The various mathematicians, therefore,
lack a relationship between in-issue and meta-issue. In conclusion, mathematics textbooks for
‘multicultural mathematics education’ should include learning tasks that present mathematicians
diverse cultural backgrounds, not just European male mathematicians. Mathematics textbooks
for 'multicultural mathematics education' should also describe the various mathematical
backgrounds based on the dialogical relationships among diverse ethnomathematics according
to the historico-genetic principle.