Although heavily debated and sometimes rejected in the scholarly debates, notions of culture and identity have to a large extent become "the" framework through which to understand the realities, effects and implications of transnational migration for European societies as well as for migrants themselves. Drawing on ethnographic data from a Norwegian primary school which presents itself as multicultural and on textual data from the wider political debate in Norway, the author aims to explore the understandings of culture that are at play in such a context and the possibilities and restrictions these are providing for practices of inclusion. At the same time as teachers are proud of their efforts to "make cultural diversity visible", there is also a significant frustration with a multiculturalist language that tends to equal identity with primordial spatial belonging. In response, new understandings of culture and identity that are more focused on commonality are emerging. (Contains 2 notes.)