The article presents the results of a comparative historical study of the role of institutional factors of education in the content of the social situation of the development of Soviet and modern primary school students. As an objective component of the social situation of the development of schoolchildren, the laws on education corresponding to the historical period regulating the relationship between family and school were considered. The parameters of the subjective component of the social situation of development were motivational preferences, self-esteem and the level of claims, anxiety of younger schoolchildren. It is shown that the modality of institutional factors has a significant impact both on the educational environment itself and on the child’s attitude to the new system of social relations for him.

The article presents a study of the external and internal aspects of the social situation of development in education and socio-psychological adaptation of schoolchildren studying in the eighth and tenth grades. In the study with the participation of 109 school students, the questionnaire of socio-psychological adaptation of K. Rogers and R. Diamond was used in the modification of A. K. Osnitsky, the questionnaires “The school situation” by V. K. Zaretsky and A. B. Kholmogorova and “The inner position of the student” by D. V. Lubovsky. It is shown that many indicators of the school situation, internal position and socio-psychological adaptation increase in ninth graders and decrease in 10th grade. The conditionality of these changes by institutional requirements is shown. The relationship between the parameters of the school situation and socio-psychological adaptation is revealed, prospects for further research are outlined.