The article discloses the contextual nature of educational environment and demonstrates the proportion of explicit and implicit (unconscious for the subjects of education) contexts. The methodological basis of the article is the contextual approach and the theory of symbolical-contextual education by A.A. Verbitsky. We believe that the contextual approach in the analysis of educational process and educational environment provides regulation of the process of their functioning with due account of influence on the condition and behavior of all the subjects of education of both explicit, institutional, and implicit, unconscious for subjects contexts. The article describes the psychological essence of the phenomenon of context, understood as the theoretical psychological construct. As a psychic phenomenon context is a psychic mechanism of semantization, i.e. forming of meaning and sense of some fragment of psychic content in its relationships with other fragments. On the basis of comparison with the notion “environment” the notion “context” is seen as a basic one for understanding the essence and the functioning of the educational system. From the positions of the developed by the author contextual approach to psychological research and education the definition of contextual educational environment is given. The conceptual advantage of the notion “implicit context of education” over the traditional notion “hidden curriculum”, which is usually understood as a “hidden content of education”, is shown. The understanding of the contextual nature of all the phenomena of educational process in the integral educational environment demands consideration of all possible contexts of their interpretation that influence the condition and behavior of the subjects of education. The results of the study may be used in the process of construction of educational environment and management of educational process, they may be applied both in the work of the theoreticians and the practitioners in the sphere of education, as well as in education of the future pedagogues.