Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how quality culture influences the relationship between total quality management (TQM) and secondary school students' perceived service quality (PSQ). Design/methodology/approach: The authors underpin research to analyse the effect of quality culture and TQM practices on PSQ. The sample included questionnaires completed by 268 teachers and 559 students from 56 secondary schools in the Murcia Region (Spain). The proposed model comprises an exogenous construct (quality culture) and three endogenous ones (two constructs represent the TQM model's infrastructure practices and core practices, whereas one represents PSQ), and specifies the relations among them. The authors used the variance-based structural equation modeling technique and the partial least squares estimation method to test the hypotheses. Findings: Its empirical analysis reveals that the quality culture influences the effectiveness of QM practices by suggesting a significant strong effect on infrastructure and core quality practices. In turn, the analysis reveals that these two QM aspects differently have an impact on PSQ. Finally, the mediation analysis results reveal the indirect significant impact of the quality culture on PSQ through the mediator effect of QM practices. Originality/value: The main contribution of this work is to theoretically explain and empirically prove some mechanisms by which education centers can develop and implement a total quality initiative. The findings provide ideas for management teams about how to personalize TQM practices to achieve optimum performance outcomes.