The overarching aim in this paper is to contextualize civic and citizenship education practices, something which promises to settle an old social scientific dispute about the sources of trust in institutions: Is trust in institutions rooted in social psychology, culture and socioeconomic factors, or is it a response to institutional performance? Here, we analyze ICCS 2009 (International Civic and Citizenship Education Study) data at student level (approximately 140,000 students) in 37 countries and territories merged with the 2009 Quality of Government dataset that includes the World Values Surveys (WVS) national aggregates on trust and confidence. We also added MaxRange institutional data for 2009. First, a regression tree analysis is made, second a series of orindary least squares (OLS) regressions, and third, a structural equation model. Results strongly support the institutional performance theory and further explains the interaction between the political institutions and the political culture. In fact the former make possible the latter, so that attitudes and participation may be critical to established institutions while taking part in them. Influences on trust in institutions thus exist on all three levels investigated: institutional, cultural and individual-psychological. However, the interacting political-institutional and political-cultural influences dominate.