The paper reviews literature dealing with children's social and political development and examines how changing orientations in child development research relate to citizenship education. The paper is intended for use by elementary school educators as they develop and implement citizenship education and law-related education programs. The paper is presented in four major sections. Section I reviews research by Jean Piaget related to developmental stage characteristics. Section II focuses on social development. Topics discussed include children's social relations, dependence on adults, development of self-discipline, tolerance for others, and peer group influence. Section III explores the development of children's political views. Themes are adult influence, reasoning abilities, and children's conception of rights and roles vis-a-vis authority. Section IV considers implications of social and political development for curriculum planning and cites principles to aid citizenship education curriculum developers. These principles emphasize that curriculum should acknowledge children's social and political thinking as the medium for learning about community and society; help children gain generalized conceptions of group life; encourage children to interact and identify with adult models; and stimulate reasoning and discussion about political processes in the classroom and at state and national levels. (Author/DB)