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During the last century antropology and ethnology could still draw a sufficiently sharp picture of the static communities of the mission-areas, necessary for the knowledge of a missioner. The fast changes of structure in the non-Western world are leading to the fact, that modern sociology ought to take an important part in the practical-scientific training of missioners. Social sciences in so far as they aim in their application at socially planned action, are indispensable for the establishment of the Church in areas showing a more and more socially complicated picture. There are four factors necessitating in the Missions the intervention of sociologists and sociographers : 1. the demographic development; 2. the economical i.c. industrial-technical development; 3. the national-political racial-political development and 4. the development of the ideological influence of the West deriving from non-christian spheres of influence (communism, humanism etc.). All these factors lead to a number of alarming symptoms in the mission-areas. It is especially Africa that is elaborated by Dutch and Belgian missioners and where new settlements and new forms of spiritual care demand broad and intensive co-operation. Therefore, it is necessary that the Dutch and Belgian orders and congregations working in Africa, jointly examine their activities and reorganize and extend their positions in the light of the total mission-problematic, in an as large as possible co-ordination. When doing this they shall have to take into account all civil projects of cultural and material welfare. For this joint and systematic mission work the bringing in of catholic social research is necessary, such as it has been developped on behalf of spiritual care in and outside of the Netherlands by the Catholic Social-Ecclesiastic Institute. In this way the experiences accumulated by the catholic-social research can be made subservient to the young Churches in the mission-areas. Also for the Missions... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]