The article deals with the phenomenon of responsibility in its personal and social aspect through the prism of philosophic, religious, psychological and pedagogic views and approaches. It is shown that social responsibility is considered to be the leading systemic regulator of the activities and behavior of a person in the society. The functions of responsibility in regulation of relations of a personality with oneself and the society are described in the article.

The article deals with the similarities and differences of essential and practice-oriented foundations of the knowledge model of education and the competence model of education. The notion of competence is regarded, first of all, as an integrated personal quality. Based on the comparison of sense, structural and contents parameters the authors show the contradictions in the interpretations of traditional components of the competence (to know, to be able to, to master).