When studying any aspect of the lives of children during the Spanish Civil War, or an institution or educational model of that time, it becomes clear that many factors come into play, none of which can be considered in isolation. Children's lives are inextricably bound up with the context in which they unfold and while academic research strives for concrete realities, it is only through the juxtaposition of a range of studies which explore the varied dimensions that make up community life that we can begin to gain a more panoramic vision of that context. This article, then, sets out to examine the impact of the communities within which the children of that time lived, communities that in large part were generated by the political and ideological struggles of the period.