The sociological interpretation of reality and the processes occurring in it is determined by
various approaches to understanding its nature. The diversity of these approaches is eventually reduced to
its definition as a reality of the social world, which reflects, on the one hand, objectively existing phenomena
and processes and, on the other hand, people’s subjective perceptions about the objective reality. Social
actuality as objective social reality exists beyond the subject of social cognition, i.e. objectively. Each
new generation inherits from their parent generations a complex system of economic, social and
political structures, institutions, organizations and t5he established relationships which form the social
infrastructure of objective reality (social reality). But people perceive directly only the part of objective
reality in which they have their own knowledge. Due to knowledge of its particular sphere or different
objects of reality, people get its more or less adequate subjective perception. Therefore, the study of social
reality focuses on the process of formation of subjective ideas about the objects of social actuality and
attitudes to it, which is included in the subject area of sociology of knowledge. That is, from the standpoint
of sociology of knowledge, the research object is not reality, but ideas about the reality. Based on subjective
perceptions of reality, people construct their own reality. These perceptions change under the influence of
various factors affecting the changes in social reality in the process of its formation. A significant change
factor is the crisis which affects all spheres of the Russian society. The article analyzes the impact of the
crisis on the changes in social reality in different population groups in Russia and the way it is reflected on
people’s attitudes to each other, to family, work and education. Based on analysis of data from nationwide
studies it has been revealed that there is a contradiction between Russians’ traditional attitudes to each
other, family, work and education and the emerging modern attitudes. Amid crisis, this contradiction tends to exacerbate due to the impossibility of maintaining the traditional principles underlying the old
way of life, which leads to uncertainty and formation of new forms of certainty through the change in life
paradigm
Keywords
crisis, education, family, work, changing reality, interpersonal interaction