There is no doubt that education has an enormous potential to deliver people out of poverty, bridge the inequality gap and accelerate socio-economic growth and development. Community secondary schools currently are important to ensure universal access of secondary education and improve education quality. Efforts have been made to improve the condition in the community secondary schools and poor academic performance. Efforts included increasing teachers’ employment but there are many issues that hinder the effectiveness including socio-cultural factors. The overall objective of this study was to determine socio-cultural factors affecting community secondary school students’ academic performance in Mvomero district. The study adopted a cross sectional design. The study involved 110 respondents; these are 100 students and 10 key informants. Respondents were obtained through random sampling technique. Data were collected through the structured questionnaire administered to students, Checklist administered to key informants, that is, parents/guardians of students; teachers and people who lived nearby the community schools. Focus group discussions (FGD’s) were also used during the study to complement information. Findings were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences Version 16.0 software programme and STATA data analysis software followed by interpretation of results. Study findings illustrated that socio- cultural factors such as family size; family members capable of working; education of the parents; parents’ occupations; distance to and from school and students’ time spent on doing domestic chores affected students’ academic performance. Study findings revealed that there were poor parents involvement in the academic issues related to their children. Moreover, study findings showed that students’ behaviours