The mission of the Johann Jacobs Foundation is international. Currently, its grant-making policy operates through communication networks to influence decision makers and educators, to facilitate interdisciplinary research, and to promote research for incentive and mutual aid.

Each year the foundation sponsors a major conference related to one of these priorities as defined by the board. The “Joining Society: Social Interaction and Learning in Adolescence and Youth” conference, held at Marbach Castle, Germany, in 1997, provides the basis for this volume. That topic is directly connected with the Johann Jacobs Foundation's growing interest in the adolescent phase of human development in the social context of a rapidly changing world. The Foundation promotes research in this area and contributes to the development of action programs with a three-pronged goal: to improve opportunities for adolescents, to promote the development of respect for the environment, and to identify future widespread problems that may result from the unreasonable exploitation of environmental resources. This effort also involves correcting or preventing the marginalization of youth, particularly in inner cities, and proposing ways in which disadvantaged teens can become competitive users of new information technologies.

For the organization of this conference, the Johann Jacobs Foundation invited Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont, a psychology professor at the University of Neuchâtel, to set up a small international team. She was chosen because of her special interests in the social psychology of education and her extensive research on the importance of horizontal (peer) interactions in cognitive development.