Calculations of exciton magnetic‐polaron (EMP) energies in semimagnetic quantum well structures and superlattices together with their temperature and magnetic field dependence have been performed. The influence on the EMP energies of the effects of enhanced paramagnetism at the interface and interface roughness are evaluated. It is shown that both these effects increase the theoretical EMP energy values and that interface disorder is the dominant factor in both cases. Furthermore, a more pronounced increase occurs for both effects in superlattices than in single quantum wells. Superlattices can also exhibit an additional type of disorder arising from variations in the barrier/well thickness. It is shown that this kind of disorder gives rise to an increase in the EMP energy values only when it leads to an overall narrowing of the well regions. A comparison with experimental values of the EMP energies in superlattices indicates the presence of small amounts of micro‐roughness in the reported structures on a scale that is similar to that required to account for magneto‐optical data. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.