Countries of Central Eastern Europe despite their common colonial, nazi racism and communist ideological pressure background have experienced a nexus of local challenges toward inclusion. In the 1990s the ‘trail to inclusion’ was fully “…riddled with uncertainness, disputes and contradictions”. The overall trend of a response to the development of inclusion in these countries gained its certainty “within the context of general educational provision” and reforms under the influence and adoption of the Salamanca Statements and Framework of Actions in 1994. The latest generalization of research findings, investigated under the overall purpose of ‘what is known about inclusive education in Eastern Europe’ carried out by Stepaniuk in 2018, introduced inclusive education (within the time frame between 2005-2016) through the identification of a number of ‘barriers for inclusive education’ and ‘a policy-practice gap and responsibilities within systems’ in these countries. The investigation stressed that even though Eastern European and former Soviet states have filled their trails to inclusive education through a number of educational reforms, responding to Salamanca and other global statements in disability and education, the long-held beliefs, coloured by the inherited ideology of discrimination and exclusionary proprieties towards difference and disability – even though this is the fact, they have one of the strongest entrenched practice in this region.  

However, diversification in current trails to inclusive education is a refraction of a broader spectrum of interconnections among political, economic and social circumstances in each country. The research investigation in the present article, will be focusing on Moldova’ context of social-cultural historical origins and political choices and practice, discussing educational arrangements towards inclusion.

This is a qualitative study, with relevant peer review resources connected to the research question and national documents of educational reforms towards inclusion retrospectively and contemporary, analysed by a content analysis approach. This study utilises long term statistics completed by the respective international agencies as a result of regular monitoring of an implementation of educational reforms and the National Bureau of Statistics. Main findings were composed in three big themes: adaptation of the Soviet pattern of special education; ‘endemic stress’ of breaking the pattern and paradoxes of resolution