This study adopts the methodological lens of narrative ethnography and the concept of key incidents as condensed narratives to examine how narratives of education and cultural normativity emerge in diverse classrooms with migrant adolescents. In focus is how migrant students' experiences and participation in classrooms are framed and assessed by teachers. Through classroom observations and interviews with the adolescents, the study gives profound insights into classroom practices, as the multitude of stories reveals the complexity of participation and educational outcomes. It is revealed how schools mediate and control narrative production and narrative normativity, even in situations in which teachers have the best intentions to include diverse experiences. Key incidents in the classrooms stood out as acute events that made evident the enforcement of cultural normativity and the exclusion of the adolescents' experiences and participation.