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Based on the data acquired in the PISA survey of Germany, Switzerland and the United States, this article examines the differences in achievement of students. This article focuses on the social and cultural capital of students. It is being examined whether the effects of social and cultural capital give an explanation to what extent the socio-economic status and the secondary education of the parents influence the reading achievement. The results of the analyses were rather surprising: not all the indicators for social capital used in the PISA survey correlate positively with the achievement scores, but negatively, whereas cultural capital considerably increases the competence of students. Nevertheless, future studies should use more suitable indicators for social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional frameworks that determine what and how we know in contemporary societies have regained a central role in institutional analyses. Emphasizing the central role professional knowledge plays in today's society, these analyses offer rich insights into the processes through which organizational rules, norms and practices shape the construction of 'facts' within expert groups. How novel fields of professional knowledge are formed and become institutionalized deserves further investigation however. By examining efforts by institution builders in molecular biology in Britain, Germany and the United States during the post war decades, this study links the construction of new expert groups to local ideological frames about human advancement and the role of the state. Scientific expert groups play an important role in the technological development of the West and form an intellectual core around which contemporary knowledge societies are organized. This study outlines how local ideological frames determine 1) outcomes of struggles for legitimacy between these groups and 2) the institutionalization of the fields of expertise around which these groups are organized. The final sections reflect on how conceptual insights gained through this study offer avenues for further research in the sociology of organization literature and the literature on the history of modern thought. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]