New social studies curricula and methods need to be adapted to fundamental aims of education -- the stimulation of cognitive and moral development. Educational implications of Piaget's work in cognitive stage development and the author's work in moral stage development are based upon the cognitive developmental transition of John Dewey, who suggested that it is the social role of schools to develop active thought toward concern for social justice. Two previously neglected themes of Dewey which are elaborated in this work on moral stages, and which may correct certain basic gaps in the new social studies, concern education as supplier of the conditions for development through the cognitive and moral stages, and ethical principles as defining the aims of social education. The most important findings in cognitive development are the verifications of Piaget's description of adolescence as the period of development of abstract, reflective thought. Although social inquiry or analytic thinking cannot be taught, its development can be stimulated and extended. Moral stages lie at the core of political and social value decisions. A moral development approach, non-indoctrinative in its objectives and methods, that is concerned about moral action as well as moral reasoning, needs to be formed. (Author/SJM)