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The functioning and development of the system of education as a social institution is characterized by specific internal contradictions, which are reflected in scientific cognition in the form of a set of theoretical problems. Along with pedagogical, psychological, economic, and other problems, properly sociological problems can also be discerned. The basic characteristic of these latter is that they reflect contradictory interactions between the system of education and society as a global-social system. From this it follows that this interaction is the object of the sociology of education in the broadest sense.

The project to erect a hydroelectric station cascade on the Katun River (Gorno-Altai Autonomous Oblast) has provoked extremely heated discussions: proponents of its realization point to the shortage of energy in the region and the impossibility (for a number of reasons) of resolving the energy problems in any other way; opponents speak of the possible unfavorable (environmental, as a rule) consequences of the construction. Since we are not specialists in the realm of economics or the environment, we shall refrain from expressing our views on this subject and shall direct readers' attention to an aspect of the problem that is discussed in the press much less frequently—the possible ethnosocial consequences of the Katun project's implementation.

Research into sociological problems pertaining to the intelligentsia, which is an inseparable part of the new historical community the Soviet people, requires theoretical treatment of a number of initial concepts. One of them is "the social facies [sotsial'nyi oblik] of the intelligentsia."

Effective control of the development of the social structure of socialist society with the aid of the education system is today an urgent problem. The education system has the potential of reducing differences among classes and social groups and of eliminating social distinctions between town and countryside and between people engaged in physical or mental labor.

Effective control of the development of the social structure in socialist society, aided by the educational system, is a very urgent problem under present conditions. The system of education has the potential to bring different classes and social groups closer together and to eliminate social differences between town and country, and between manual and nonmanual workers.

Improvement in the public education and occupational training of young people are an integral part of the optimization of developed socialist society. The shift to intensive economic development, the actualizaton of a broadscale, integral socioeconomic program, the ongoing expansion and reinforcement of socialist democracy, the practical construction, in the main and basically, of a classless social structure, and the shaping of the new man elicit an imperative demand for far-reaching change within the educational system. At the Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress, a definition for development in our society over the current decade was followed by a call "to enhance the operational efficiency of all the units and forms of education and cadre training." [1]