Teenagers & Adolescence

Carter Sherman is a reproductive health and justice reporter at The Guardian, where she's covered the real-world results of abortion bans, access to health care for trans people and how technology is reshaping our view of our bodies and our choices. In her new book, "The Second Coming: Sex And The Next Generation's Fight Over Its Future," Sherman explores why Gen Z - that's people ages 13 to 28 - are having less sex than previous generations.

British actor Stephen Graham, stars in not one but two new shows, Hulu's "A Thousand Blows" and the Netflix miniseries "Adolescence."

Each episode HBO's The Pitt presents an hour of a shift in a Pittsburgh ER, while each episode of Netflix's brilliant Adolescence considers the murder of a teenage girl from a different point of view.

The DoE is cutting staff, halting grants and pressuring schools on various administration priorities. Washington Post writer Laura Meckler discusses its destabilizing effect on the education system.

Novelist and memoirist Jill Ciment. Her new memoir, "Consent," begins when she was 17 and fell in love and had a sexual relationship with her married art teacher. He was 47, 30 years older than her. Even though he epitomized her romantic archetype and she wanted the relationship, she now wonders if a 17-year-old is capable of consent and if in today's language, he would have been considered a predator.

Giamatti is nominated for an Oscar for his role as a pompous boarding school teacher who's assigned to supervise a student who has nowhere to go over winter break. Originally broadcast Jan. 10, 2024.

Russell talks and sings about the physical and sexual abuse she endured from her racist adoptive father — and about how she learned she was worthy of being loved. Originally broadcast Sept. 27, 2023.

"My father was not a good person, but he was a great character," Sedaris says. The humorist reflected on his late father in the memoir Happy-Go-Lucky. Originally broadcast May 31, 2022.

Oscar-winning actress Laura Dern. Her new book, co-written with her mother, is called "Honey, Baby, Mine." And it's based on a series of conversations they had after her mother developed lung disease and was told, if you take walks, that will help you expand your lung capacity.

Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson explains how new laws about teaching race, racism, gender identity and sexuality have created new fears and burdens in schools and classrooms.

Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide have risen in recent years. NY Times reporter Matt Richtel says we lack the therapists and treatment centers to care for teens who are suffering.

Steven Spielberg's new film "The Fabelmans" is a semi-autobiographical film based on his childhood and teenage years, and tells the story, in a fictionalized way, of how he fell in love with movies, and became a filmmaker.

When Nicole Lynn Lewis got pregnant in high school, she thought it might end her dream of going to college and having a career. She felt ashamed, in part because of how people regarded her as a pregnant Black teenager. Lewis, who is now in her 40s, was named a CNN Hero in 2014. Last year, she was named one of the inaugural awardees of the Black Voices for Black Justice Fund in recognition of her work addressing structural and systemic racism in America. Her new memoir is called Pregnant Girl: A Story of Teen Motherhood, College, and Creating a Better Future for Young Families.

"There's not a lot of heroic acts in middle school," Maya Erskine said in this 2019 interview. She and Anna Konkle play 13-year-old versions of themselves in the comedy series PEN15, now in season 2.

Schlesinger, who died April 1 of COVID-19, won three Emmy Awards for his songs for the TV series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. He spoke to Fresh Air with bandmate Chris Collingwood in 1999.

It has been nearly a decade since actor Claire Danes first appeared as CIA agent Carrie Mathison on the Showtime series Homeland. Now that the show is in its eighth and final season, Danes is feeling reflective about its run.

After writing about the lives of girls for decades, Peggy Orenstein, turns her attention to boys in the #Metoo era. Her new book is 'Boys and Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent and Navigating the new Masculinity.'

Twins, singer-songwriters, and LGBTQ icons Tegan and Sara talk about their tumultuous high school years. It's the subject of their new memoir and a new recording.

The former YouTube star says he wanted his film, Eighth Grade, to take an "emotional inventory" of what today's adolescents are experiencing. Originally broadcast July 18, 2018.

Sara Saedi was two when her parents fled Iran to California. Her new memoir describes her 18-year-long path to citizenship, and the lingering anxiety of being undocumented.