The article examines the socio-cultural factors that aff ect the educational achievements of students (schoolchildren and students) and determine their educational failure / success. The purpose of the paper is to identify and consider cognitive, axiological and behavioral factors of educational failure / success that have a socio-cultural nature. The paper is based on the data of the interdisciplinary research «Transfer of human capital of educational communities: from failure to success», carried out in 2019-2020. In the course of the empirical study, the methods of expert interviews with representatives of educational organizations of the Sverdlovsk region and secondary analysis of data from pedagogical, socio-psychological, and sociological studies refl ecting the socio-cultural prerequisites of educational failure / success were used.