The process of economic reforms in Russia has been accompanied by drastic and negative phenomena in rural education, by a worsening of the already large difference in levels of schooling of young people in the countryside and in the cities. The present study is one of the first attempts at a comprehensive approach, from the standpoint of sociology and social pedagogy, to a study of the specific character of the educational socium in the Russian countryside, the characteristics of its structure, and the evolution of the public's consciousness and behavior under the new social conditions. This study is in keeping with a problem that is vitally important to the society, the reform of secondary and higher education now under way. To serve as the main method of collecting the primary sociological information the authors made use of the questionnaire survey of students in their place of schooling, teachers in their place of work, and parents in their place of work and residence. Mostly the authors examine several aspects of schoolteachers' way of life and perception about living in the countryside. These study examines the following: (1) marital status of schoolteachers; (2) sources of income of the family of rural schoolteachers; (3) quality of life of rural schoolteachers; (4) access of schoolteachers to healthcare services; (5) rural schoolteachers' attitudes towards reforms in Russia; (6) schoolteachers' perception of safety in the countryside; and (7) adaptations made by schoolteachers to countryside life. (Contains 5 tables and 1 figure.)