The paper examines the question of the compatibility between the conceptual framework of the PISA-study and the semantics of the German term ‘Bildung’. My claim is that the PISA-framework embod-ies a social-pragmatist approach to the processes of ‘meaning-making’, and that this approach is not compatible with one of the semantic dimensions of ‘Bildung’, namely with its emphasis on a socially independent world of cultural objectivations that has to be mirrored by canon-building school curric-ula. Therefore the attempt of the German PISA-Consortium to adopt that semantic dimension of ‘Bildung’ by both conceptual revisions of the original framework and supplement national studies should be considered as a very problematic one.