The article contains a brief review of existing directions in social studies, emphasizing the role of social institutes, historical, cultural and communicative processes in formation of social representations about “the others”, defined from the position of ethnicity or citizenship and assembled under the general name of constructivist paradigm. It is pointed out that the image of the “other” in individual and social consciousness represents a result of collective communicative activity, integrated in social reality by means of discourses, developed by elites - politicians and intellectuals and translated by educational systems and mass-media. The authors underline that the image of “other” constitutes an important component of individual world view, serving for the social identity construction and marking limits between in - and outgroups. Proximal structures of representations about “other” are built at the institutional level, while distal ones - at the group and individual level in the process on interpersonal or intergroup interaction and are changed by life experience and personal meanings and sense.